Joerg

Carrying a thread back from Glorantha to RQ: Quoting Peter Metcalfe: I like that, I was thinking about using a familiar to 'store' spells for quick casting but I really like the idea of sorcerers using scrolls. So the sorcerer creates a scroll for a spell capturing the potential for the spell to be cast rapidly, but thy must devote a point of Free INT to hold enough knowledge, linked to the expression of the spell in the scroll, in memory to be able to use it. Nice. Is the scroll expended in the casting though, or is the the Free INT released when doing so? What's the rationalisation for that? Perhaps the spell is actually cast into the scroll, which has to be destroyed in order to release it? I thought that keeping a spell at the ready should diminish the ability to cast other spells a bit. In my example of the movie-style taoist, he could have a few stacks of papers linked to different spells, and activate those at combat speeds (with one SR, probably up to two or three of these per round). When all prepared papers are used up (or get destroyed, the point of Free INT is freed again. Each of those castings should be pre-paid in full, with the activation point an extra expenditure. For more powerful spells, that's an awful lot of MP to put in. RQG sorcery doesn't have a multispell, but the Combine technique might be useful to chain several spells of the same kind. Alternatively, there is one spell to prepare the recipients of this pre-cast, and then each of them needs to be cast individually. Not sure whether this is balanced for RQG, but it might be a nice way to have a wuxia magician with RQG-based rules. If using a scroll, that would be expended in the casting, or probably the seal on it will be expended. Without the seal, the remains of the scroll would be just a piece of parchment (clay tablet, papyrus, or whatever). For some reason (possibly just indoctrination from an exposure to AD&D) I think I would prefer scrolls to hold one seal/spell activation per item only. Creating these scrolls and seals should have some material cost, too, in addition to production time. Creating scrolls for someone else might be possible, but should involve that other person in the making of the scroll. The blocked point of Free INT might affect both the spellcaster and the scroll user. A procedure not that different from Issaries' spell trading rune magic, there applied to rune points. With a scroll, the person activating it would still have to target the magic (the taoist variant above would target by touch - the paper touching the target, released from short range), involving a skill roll (for touch a roll on unarmed combat?).

With the RQG paragraph on Rokari personal magic in the sorcery chapter, I find it hard to name significant differences between a run-of-the-mill Rokari peasant and a Carmanian peasant. Orlanthi peasants are about 95% initiates of deities or spirit cults. Lodrili peasants do sacrifice, but apparently as a group rather than as individuals, receiving the divine magic through the priesthood performing those sacrifices. Personal initiation to specific cults appears to be rarer than among Orlanthi. Only two types of Malkioni learn sorcery now, it appears - zzabur caste members with sufficient talent, or men-of-all with sufficient talent. The Rokari solve the problem by recruiting children with proven high INT for the celibate Rokari caste at age 5. I wonder how they manage to do that... in Germany, pupils are made to select their branch of school at age 10, and that may be too early for them to show the extent of their mental capacity. The New Idealist Hrestoli claim to have a meritocracy. Now it is possible that members of the Malkioni culture receive a cultural INT bonus in character creation. Loskalmi encounter sorcery training only after having been raised to the "knight" caste, misleadingly called "men of all" when they have mastered neither zzaburi nor talar caste abilities yet. The older Hrestoli ways as practiced in southern Seshnela in covert defiance of the Rokari, and on the Castle Coast and in parts of Ralios in open defiance of the Rokari. The rest of the Malkioni use spirit magic and/or divine rune magic. Now how are they different from pagans in Safelster or Dara Happa? Does mandatory attendance to the "Worship Invisible God" rites on Goddays with the magic point sacrifice make them any different from Turos worshipers in Doblian doing the same for their Carmanian culture overlords? The idea of sorcerous orders whose scripture gave access to spells and blessings which were associated with the major schools of sorcery/philosophy (to avoid the word "church") was touted in HeroQuest 1. It made some sense that communal donation of magic could be turned into blessings by the orderlies. I also feel that rote knowledge might be all that is required to create a magical effect, it doesn't always have to be deep understanding and deduction. That's not quite how the pre-ancient world worked. Single-use enchantments, like scrolls, or taoist seals, might be another way to have sorcery rather than a divine uplink to create a magical effect triggered by a secondary action (that still needs to be learned), but here we get into the territory of "something you have", which is a (slightly weird) generalization of animist magic. Right now we are in a situation that both HQG and RQG use the same concept of the six techniques with their inter-relations (Command and Tap inferring all other techniques, the other two pairs only inferring their respective opposite), without making them an ability that is rolled but more like an initiatory state - you know a technique direcly, can infer it from another technique you know, or don't know it at all. "Mastery of the Runes" is a bit unfortunately named in RQG since it has a quite different meaning in HQG, where passions rather than skills can be rolled as activity in a conflict, and mastery is measured as a scale rather than a on/standby/off model. The HQG sorcerer uses his grimoire ability as the basic ability, with spells as break-out. The RQG learns all the spells individually, based on the written sources available to them. On a non-rules level the sources we have around the Abiding Book or Zzabur's writings and how they contain magic were interpreted like that in HQ1. This has been lost to some extent with the HQG approach. In an ideal game system we would have techniques and runes that have become a part of the magical self of the sorcerer enabling him to interpret a piece of scripture and make into a spell creating an active magical effect in the world, or learn how that spell does what it is doing to reproduce the effect. (Whoever said sorcery would be easy?) This doesn't get easier with the way "high level" practitioners of shamanism, theism and sorcery access the magic of divine level magical entities. Shamans approach such entities on something resembling their turf and negotiate or gamble to get them do a thing for them. That's a bit different from taking a lowly spirit, giving it a charm to inhabit to be in the world of life, and release it to do its stuff, but not too different. "Something you have" doesn't quite describe how a Soul Wind is released... High level Theists become their deity, and just perform the feats. Easy enough. Sorcerers make magical entities do their bidding through their runic natures. "You there, you are a second tier air elemental that deigns to take on a useless identity by the name of <X>. As a second tier air elemental, through my knowledge of your nature I bid you do <Y> (something that is part of your nature)." Taking that to the lowest level isn't really much different from spirit magic. "Spirit, I bid you enter this housing I prepared for you." "Spirit in the housing, by the nature of you and the housing you reside in, I bid you to do <Y>." That housing would be almost indistinguishable from a spirit spell focus, and the effect indistinguishable from a spirit spell effect. I do put some stock in certain societies being different from the spirit magic users in Prax, Maniria and Peloria, especially the westerners, but why not also a good portion of the easterners? It is true that we never received the equivalent of the Genertela Box' Players Book for the parts of Glorantha presented in The Missing Lands. We did get Elder Secrets for Mostali and Aldryami, without any attempt to make the Mostali any more playable. I don't have access to the full range of ancient notes and scribbles, but from mentions in old interviews or APAzine articles, concepts like the ancient home of the keets are at least as old as the heyday of RQ2, so the weird east, the invasion of the seas ending much of that great culture, and that weird presentation in the Jonstown Compendium show that a lot of the basic thoughts finally presented in Revealed Mythologies are fairly old - the story of Kahar, Harantara and Nenduren is a good explanation for the otherness of the Zabdamar which has been there ever since the Gloranthan Bestiary got published or Kahar's Sea of Fog mentioned. (Kahar's Sea of Fog was present already in 1978 for it to be shown in that world map on p.6 of RQ2, although the implications may have grown gradually). RQ offered two significantly different magic systems, battle magic and rune magic. Cults of Terror published the four world views, which somehow became the Four Separate Worlds by the time Hero Wars was published, and probably at least a decade earlier. Greg was fairly emphatic about that "magical organ" that a person developed to interact as a conduit with the world of magic, or in case of mystics as an isolator or reflector already in the middle nineties. The mysticism of the east has its pure form - the meditating mystics spending ages or centuries in contemplation and/or otherworldly experiences, or the "applied mystics" who accumulated insight by living right, as exemplified by the dragonewts and apparently also a good portion of the Eastern humans, keets and even merfolk. Not certain about the eastern Ludoch, but sure about the Zabdamar. In a way, this goes for the eastern Antigods, too. They seek to attain oneness with their activity or rune of focus - be it an elemental rune or some other principle. And their presence may just be a manifestation of austerities of the greatest mystics. Revealed Mythologies sort of re-introduced spirit magic to the East with the spirit master of the three Sheradpara brothers, but the presence of the sorcerous Sheradpara brother Martalak remains, so we have to deal with Eastern sorcery. Mystical martial arts are something you learn and then perfect. The RQ3 Land of Ninja ki system was an interesting way to tie this in with a skill system, but suffered from the "initiate gap" the same way that only very few and exceptional RQ3 player characters ever made it to rune levels unless more or less created that way through inventive application of the Previous Experience system and starting with old characters. It is fine to have a skill threshold to reach before you can start developing the quasi-magical effects of the ki skills, but putting it at 90% just to start developing it is basically taking these out of the game. I would be happy with a more reachable ki skills approach for mystical martial arts, including stuff like seals, and the original Men of All having something vaguely similar. Not all men-of-all are Irensavalists like Talor, although all should be able to draw on the experience of Joy. I think that the Malkioni use sorcery for battle or quest preparation the way an Orlanthi would use a sacrifice. Martial arts cliche has opponents do a kata or a swirl or the like before initiating combat. Think of that as casting the spell. Likewise, the self-presentation of the heroic warrior primes the warrior for his magic in combat. Sorcery is a literate magic, and inscribing a formula shorthand through motion of the weapons and/or the body might be another way to activate a spell. I would like to see meditative katas transforming into effective battle actions. The martial arts styles we have been presented so far don't have clear core rune affinities associated to them, and any such system needs to start looking at the documented instances and explaining those (or giving extremely good reasons to discontinue them). That's not what Egil and other famous Viking sorcerers did. The question remains whether this calligraphy would be a sorcerous spell or rather something like a ki skill, but yes, this is what I was thinking about when considering how cinematic or manga taoism could translate into Eastern Gloranthan mystic warriors or spell casters. Ways to limit this in RQ might be temporally blocking Free INT for a spell effect, with a limited stack of applications (and paper sheets) of that ability tied to the intensity of the pre-cast. While it could be possible to block more Free INT, the maximum intensity of the pre-cast will be reduced with each additional stack - a game of diminishing returns. The MP cost during activation, even if drawn from a storage, provides another limiter. Tapping hit points creates all sorts of mechanical problems and should be avoided. However, whatever we define for RQ had better also have a manifestation in HQ. How to do a ki skill in HQ? A breakout of another ability at one mastery less? I don't know enough about 13th Age rules to be qualified to suggest something for that system. More later, work calls.

From the context, you might have seen that I threw this out in exasperation: Says the person who just gives the title of the book on the Wikia. I do use the wikia, try to improve it in small ways when entries are particularly unsatisfying or frustrating, suggest changes where my ideas of improvement might conflict with Peter's ideas about the course of the Wikia, and most of all I try hard to avoid edit wars. What I really want is an information system which makes use of all available publications, ideally able to open a pdf at exactly the places quoted from the memory device of the user (so that all you need to search a document is to tell the system where to find the searchable pdf in order to call up the source quotation), and able to provide a map with thematic layers pertinent to the request (something a GIS could provide). That way everybody could search their own library of Glorantha documents for quotations, or have to make do with Glorantha Wikia style one line "explanations" unless some editor wrote up a nice essay on the search term without violating any copyright. Just naming a non-searchable source like the Middle Sea Empire pdf isn't worth much, and referencing a 300+ pages book that you don't have a searchable pdf of is similarly frustrating. The Wikia also notoriously deleted references to published documents which Peter thinks are "post-canonical", obscuring a lot of potentially useful research links. The presentation and data structure of the wikia has been shaped by Peter, and it serves his preferences. It remains somewhat useful, but some functionalities like blind redirects to a page rather than having a list of terms which re-direct to an entry is far from helpful if your research lands you on the same page over and over again. .Try finding out in which region of Glorantha the last Jrusteli king of Melib left the Red Sword from the wikia. I don't know the conventions for creating a disambiguation page, and having no means to see which pages link to a given page is a serious flaw in the service provided by wikia. The lack of synonyms listed on a page is a serious flaw, and Peter's naming conventions and adjective formation are quite different from what I expect.

Another way to induce this might be found in the WIndstop event. There were clans who "survived" by going into the Deep Sleep, and she might have been one of the guardians maintaining the undisturbed rest of those clan members. Ty Kora Tek is often depicted as a heroquest obstacle in the Underworld, she needs to be overcome through persuasion or self-sacrifice to release a soul in her care. The Ernalda Quest in King of Dragon Pass has Ernalda bargaining for her son Barntar with TKT. But at the same time, TKT is the guardian against the desires of Nontraya. A scenario of mine has preparation for a body burial as a set of side quests organizing materials for optimum conservation of a corpse (without going all the way to Egyptian mummification) leading to a set of rites. Esrolia has two giant necropoleis, the Antones Estates west of Nochet with easily twice the "inhabitants" than the living city, and Megapolis Koravaka aka Necropolis surrounded by the artificial lake made by Vogarth Strongman. Both these places will have a significant priesthood of TKT, with lots of magics to return "uppity" corpses to rest, to deny Undeath, and to keep foes out of hallowed ground. Other magics of the Goddess may be rites to prepare a soul for rebirth, and might actually be part of Earth conception magics. This might be some kind of heroquest path rather than anything spell-like, though.

So basically a character who wants to go all defensive can use this series of parries after a similar series of dodges. Does dodging successfully save you a parry attempt?

Says the person who just gives the title of the book on the Wikia. I had been referencing the terrain maps of the various homelands as having less generalization before,. This means that for some reason the location of the place has shifted upriver. Knight Fort made its first appearance on the gameboard of Les Dieux Nomads, and was associated with a counter of heavy cavalry ranked among the Independents (much like the SUn Domers) that wasn't anythng like the Pol Joni (who appear in the Barbarian Hord of Le Guerre des Heroes,/Dragon Pass but don't get representation in that boardgame). The intent behind this was a representation of western-style horsemen shielding the Holy Country (source: personal communications with Stephen Martin, discussing ideas for playing the "mundane" game of hex map and stacks for the Holy Country). The holy places and ruins of Prax are designed to lie upon straight lines across hex borders, aka Ronance's trails, so a position on the intersection of the line going through Stormwalk and Monkey Ruins and a north-south line through Tada's Tumulus would have made sense, too. The map as published in Dieux Nomads had a few mistakes in that regard (in addition to a hex pattern that didn't quite match up with the geography), but the hex map on etyries.com corrected those mistakes. Checking the position of the fort on the hex map, it lies soutwest rather than northwest on the hex map, but on the same river/serpent running down from the Storm Mountains. That position would have placed it squarely on the edge of the Marcher Baron territory where it belongs. So yes, Knight Fort has been moved in this map (p.111), bears an outdated name, and makes a lot less sense. Good catch wrt the repositioning. My suspicion is that we see a mapping error here. I don't know whether the place is on the transparent layers of maps that covers all of Genertela all the way from westernmost Seshnela to Vulture Country (and possibly a bit beyond). I know that the maps for the Guide were created from those layers, leaving out a great deal of detail in and around Dragon Pass. Jeff's 2015 text clearly marks it as part of the Marcher Barons fortifications, too, which is consistent with what has been written about the place since Dieux Nomades came out. No need to pour it out with the Hendreiki knights' bathwater. Nowadays those heavy horsemen are likely to be warlike Esvulari talar caste folk in service to marcher barons.

The way I interpreted the text, mastering the Moon rune doesn't grant any insights to the other elements, but the Lunar cult of the Young Elementals grants access to all elemental runes except air through the Lunar school of sorcery. Carmanians might be able to add Air, too (Invisible Orlanth...) Ancient Brithini: Passions don't play into the INT-blocking acquisition of Runes and Techniques - do you mean the Powers? According to the rules, a rune or technique mastered cannot be unlearned. An ability to compress them into a single rune might be an advanced form of magic, possibly taking a century or two to learn. The Zzabur rune as the combination of all six mastered techniques, a pentagram as the combination of all the elements, an eight-branched stick for all the Powers, and something else for all the Forms might be possible. In order to do something like this, you might have to have mastered all of these in their own right before starting the amalgamation, a serious drawback to practical applications. I expect the Mostali to have Mostal's tools rather than logical applications. Jeff mentioned the Mostali "technologies" that power their sorcery: https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/7439-glorantha-technology-and-glorantha-material-technology/?page=2&amp;tab=comments#comment-104041 While some of these appear to be purely mechanical or chemical contrivances to us (black powder, cylinder pumps, gears, steam tubes), the other ones are pretty much the sorcery I expect from Mostali. The claims that all these inventions were stolen from the Mostali is dubious, to say the least. The Kadeniti claims for inventing architectural technologies and civic engineering are at least as good. Zzabur's Spirit Trap was engineered using Malkioni sorcery rather than Mostali alchemical transformation, and while it does mostly the same thing the Mostali device does, it is a feat of imitation rather than theft. I have little doubt that the Mostali stole or imitated much of their technology from other, precursor races, like the Feldichi or the Gold Wheel Dancers and probably hundreds others that we lost memory of in the Gods War. The Mostali will hotly deny this, and believe their claims much like people enamored with "alternate facts". I don't think that Dara Happan Star Lore has many spell applications, but I agree that by its very nature ()something learned) it has aspects of sorcery. It probably uses or replaces gears and similar devices for reproducing and predicting stellar movements. Personally, I prefer a purely light-based magic with crystal prisms forming the Firestick axis in their Star Towers. Personally, I see Buserian as the sacrificer of cattle (or bulls, compare Busenari, Mother of Cows). That activity probably predates the emergence of the Stars in the wake of Umath's celestial rampage. The original bearer of stellar lore may have been Zaytenaras, the other planet (in addition to Entekos and the eight planetary suns/sons) in the sky. The Carmanians are heirs to various traditions - the Spolite sorcery quite likely hearkens back to YarGan's minions. The 10,000 bring pre-God Learner Loskalmi/Akemite sorcery to the shores of Lake Oro In the time of the RQ Daily, I compared notes with Nick Brooke about Persian-inspired cultures using a priesthood of the High One(s) and a caste of sorcerers keeping the Dark/Underworld/Demonic/Disruptive forces of the world in check. My own RQ3 (modded) setting's Fharsistan has a mock-Mithraic Light Side deity and mag wizardsi keeping the demonic side in check, dealing with summoners using blood rites on two fronts, one human and imperial, one non-human and horde-like. Nick expanded his Gloranthan insights on the Spolite Darkness and its Ganesatarus links. The various (and different) blue-skinned sorcerers encountered between the Sweet Sea and Lake Oronin (formerly Mt. Turos) had not yet taken as much shape as they received in the Entekosiad, but definitely were there in some form, tied to Castle Blue. This would be true of the New Idealist Hrestoli/Irensavalists had not had a history of 14 centuries of struggle with the various beast toten peoples of Fronela and Ralios/Seshnela. The Enjoreli bull folk were as much a threat to Talor's Loskalm (or to that of Talor's predecessors) was very real, and I think that the magic deployed against these had a tradition of its own in the ranks of the Men-of-All. The higher consciousness magic you propose may come either through vision/grail quest like exposure to the Otherworld or be practiced by the wizard caste after the other stuff had been mastered. RQ3 had that weird Godunya's magic which was basically using rune points to do sorcerous manipulation of magic, and said to be draconic in nature. But there was of course the New Dragons' Ring under ShangHsa MHNBC with their Seshnegi sorcery somehow adapted to Yanoor's Kralorela. Sheng Seleris also brought Pelorian concepts to Kralorela and Kralorelan concepts and magics (and personnel) to Peloria. And then there are the Huan-to and their human servants with their adpara sorcery. There is Sheradpara sorcery in what used to be Govmeranen's Realm, and according to RQ3 that even replaced spirit magic for the Parondpara of the East Isles. With the RQG approach that limits sorcery to a small portion of the population (unless the sorcerer caste is generous casting long term Enhance INT on their less giftet kin). I am still somewhat caught up in the notion that a lot of the martial arts may practice some form of sorcery, limited to their combat styles. I wouldn't mind seeing more of a form of spell-casting that uses writing, or pre-written foci, to release sorcery. We know this from various east Asian fantasy movies where patches of calligraphed paper fly between sorcerers and demons. (And we find this in a very unlikely place, too - Egil Skallagrimsson carves runes into pieces of wood in a very similar manner.) I am not sure that Tishamto had sorcery, although I would be less surprised if the Veldang picked it up or even brought the core concept with them and spread it to the Doraddi. But Bolongo makes a singularly unsuitable candidate to be saddled with sorcery. A Bolongo-influenced anti-Pamalt-pantheon north of the Fensi mountains might, though, and that appears to be what Garangordos came from before his studies of Vadeli secrets. The Fonritian sorerers did of course inherit a lot from the Malkioneranist God Learners (more so than from the original Abiding Book movement, IMO). The purge of the God Learners was complete and drastic in Umathela, but I wouldn't be surprised if at least some of the God Learner teachings survived unter the mantle of slavery. Fonrit is also where I would for remnants of Six-legged Empire sorcery. I doubt that, really. Most Vithelan practices of magic are about dealing with the world, IMO, purifying the world to create conditions in which the sages can pass on their meditative wisdom. There is of course the myth about sorcery coming from Meksornmali, and it is distinct from that of Babadi, one of the Adpara servants or allies of Bandan. (Taktari, lord of the stone monsters, sounds like another form of Mostali troubles in the east.) Point of contact with Danmalastan could have been a stray Kachisti colony, stray Vyimorni/Vadeli explorer-raiders, or Waertagi support bases at the furthest reaches of the waters of the Neliom currents (presumably also with Kachisti or Kadeniti pesonnel brought there on their ships). We know about Sog's Ruins, which is situated on the shore carved by Worcha out of the land of Prax. It is a major feat of Waertagi land-bound engineering (a bit of a contradiction in terms, really), and appears to have been given up in favor of Nochet by the Silver Age. We do of course know about a colony of "Brithini" in the neighborhood, without surviving port structures for big Waertagi vessels. There may have been similar structures south of what remained after Worcha's rage had been spent against the Vingkotling lands, we just don't have any maps showing what went on there. The Waertagi might, and given that they weren't on good terms with the God Learners and impossible to infiltrate after Tanian's Victory, the Middle Sea Empire never managed to get that information (which would have been pretty useless for practical purposes). But then there was Teleos somewhere in that region, which nobody knows much about. But, like with Kralorela, I see various schools of mystical warriors and sorcerous magicians banishing or trapping demonic entities, in the best tradition of also Korean cinema.

In which case the map entry might indicate a network of marcher fortifications rather than a single site. A map of Prax detailing the environs of Pavis doesn't have to be accurate in Heortland-occupied territory, so unlike Christian's Bay I won't discard the notion of one larger, better fortified place between the distributed lesser forts. After all, the map in RQG clearly shows Knight's Fort.

RQG sorcerers are forced to specialize. They need at least one technique (I suppose Command is the standard, as it avoids open confession of Tap and covers all others), up to two of the standard elements to cover all of those, and Moon separately, up to four Powers and as many Forms as they can learn. An all-rounder would need to have INT 25 to accommodate all of these (and pay double or quadruple cost for inferred runes or techniques), 26 if they also have Chaos. It is nice that the six techniques are the same as in HQG. I suppose that Brithini sorcerers will have few gaps, and that many of them will have the Tap technique rather than Command. The question is how do they arrive at such values - through racial bonus and runes, or possibly through long-term Enhance INT? The rules tell us what INT is needed to acquire which combined amount of runes and techniques, but it doesn't tell us what happens when INT falls below a value required to hold that many mastered ones, by whichever means (tapping, disease, age, expiration of enhancing magic). It is quite clear to me that Free INT should remain blocked, reducing the available Free INT, but will the sorcerer be able to access all of his (formerly?) mastered runes or techniques (and the associated spells), or does he have to pick which ones remain active? One of the first spells sorcerers will inscribe is Enhance INT, putting POW into its strength and duration to have some room for adaptation. Duration for this spell is fairly cheap, though, compared to effective stength of the spell. This spell is a good incentive to learn Summon as additional technique, but then a "regiment" of wizards needs only a few specialist enhancers of INT servicing their colleagues - its range is touch rather than self. Unlike magical healing, I would rule that these spells don't stack - each casting starts with the recipient's natural INT score and adds the effect of this spell anew. If I read the paragraph on creating new spells correctly, research sorcerers wishing to create new spells will need to have the techniques and runes of a spell they research directly rather than inferred through insight. Another good reason for specialisation. There could be a number of similar effects with different combinations of runes and techniques. Summon Fire may create light, but Dispel Darkness might create some form of visibility, too, as would Summon Moon. Combine Darkness Fire might create a Firesense for Darksense or a Darksee for normal vision. It might even be possible to use some other projected sense and have a recipient hallucinate the sensed objects as vision in a quite complex spell, but possibly with side effects like "X-ray vision". What is missing compared to HQG is the concept of grimoires which provide a common basic chance for the spells included. They still can (and will) act as written sources for spells of a given tradition, but few wizards will be able to access all spells in such a grimoire for lack of runes. I haven't seen any speculations about sorcerers belonging to other traditions. Some typical spells for sects offer themselves, like Tap Chaos for Boristi or Tap Man (and possibly some element to target a stat) for Galvosti. As mentioned above for the Brithini, schools that allow Tapping will use Tap as their basic technique, conveniently taking care of the increased MP cost for related techniques while being maximally efficient for harvesting MP. Malkioni and Theyalans share a calender, and outside of lunar phases, so do the Pelorians, so elemental and power associations will be the same for sorcerers from these cultures. This will extend to Fonritian sorcerers, too, but what about Eastern sorcerers, e.g. from Kralorela or Vormain, with their own, quite different calendar. Magicians from these lands may of course have had contact with the God Learners and use their system for sympathetic magic, too, but it should be possible to use sympathetic effects from their calendar, too. The six-day week can be made to map to elements, but it might as well be made to map to the techniques, the Ancestral Dragons, or other such double triads.

Consistent naming implies that there is an official cadaster of Glorantha (or just Dragon Pass), which there isn't. Stinking Forest, Stinking Woods, Stinkwoods are all valid translations of the Gloranthan languages into English or one another. Having Apple Lane even on some continental scale maps is something of a running gag in Gloranthan cartography. If you are a stickler for consistency, you should complain about Knights' Fort, both for the term knight and for the positioning of the apostrophe. Since neither Malkioni nor Heortlanders have knights any more, that name is a relic. The Guide avoided this issue through generalization or by placing a label on the political map of Heortland. Fortress of the Men of All doesn't quite sound right, even less so since the Esvulari (unlike the God Forgot Brithini) don't have a soldier or knight caste. For some generalization reason, the label for Horngate has disappeared on the overview map, too.

Not necessarily an error. It is common practice in cartography to use a greater degree of generalization (leaving out details, or simplifying them) for map areas outside of the core theme (or thematic layer) of the map, even if the maps have the same scale. p.111 deals with Esrolia, the other maps don't or at least don't focus on it.

Why? Orlanthi clans have shared ownership of the harvest. Taking from any clan stead is taking from the clan as a whole. Why do the internal logistics for the people you just requisitioned from? I do wonder whether the Windstop starts a Hazia crisis. The military stockpiles will be drained by 1622, leaving the Imperial College quite dry.

Everybody who initiates to a cult identifies strongly with some set of traits and ideals of the cult, and goes along with the rest, possibly with some internal conflict. There are thousands of stick-in-the-mud conservative Orlanthi who don't really appreciate the Change aspect of their deity, and it gets worse among significant portions of the priesthood. There are Humakti who are extremely strong in Death but have a definition of Truth that leaves out more common interpretations of honor - see Onslaught. And there are other Humakti who come in via the Oathbinder concept, admittedly a minor concept of the cult, but enough to identify, without giving up entirely on Fertility. I regret to see the return to the RQ2 random geases for Humakt, rather than the directed geases that corresponded to the gift, but that's a change easily undone, and Humakt isn't a PC cult I favor much anyway. So I don't see any trouble with having an eloquent Humakti, or one who has accepted that his death is imminent while still pursuing fertility until the final severance. I see no point in a Praxian tribesman forbidden to ride if the character concept and the campaign consists of Praxian Beast Riders. And how do I play "Distrust X"? Is that a 100% passion? What if Londra had drawn "Distrust Aldryami", how would the Dissolution of the Temple of the Wooden Sword have played out? "Don't use poison" - this has never been much of an option in my games, anyway, but does this mean that you cannot use your iron sword which embodies your devoted Humakti soul on trolls or aldryami, not even that abominous Death Lord backed by his armada of undead?

There is still a difference between becoming an initiate and becoming a devotee. It is true that the cult of Humakt will attract mainly people who deal with the art of war or with swords, but there are numerous paths of life available to Humakti. There are dual cultists of Humakt and some other somewhat warlike deity, like e.g. Orlanth, Elmal, Yelmalio, Heler, with traits from both deities. There is the iron-working bladesmith or armorer. There is the Kethaelan lottery duelist. There is the legal champion, lawspeaker and duelist in one person. There is the Re-Life Sickness convert. There is the "Dead, not Alive" bounty hunter. There is the loving father/husband and zombie-hunter. There is your typical housecarl and oath-man. There is the sellsword murder hobo. There is the Arkati Humakti heroquest guardian. There is the Lead Cross fanatic. And then there was Onslaught. Here's an old short piece of mine to show how to both fulfill and break stereotypes (in this case of the Storm Bull cult) : http://www.sartar.de/glorantha/oldsite/npc-hrut.html

Quite comparable to Tolkien's older approaches to the Silmarillion, yes - no more Tuor and Glorfindel killing balrogs left and right, but still a significant number of them at the fall of Gondolin. Short synopses abound in the Guide. The longer details would need to be framed in a way that they could be in-world documents (similar to King of Sartar), and adapted to canon.

Quite a lot of this is covered by mounted combat rules. Fighting when hanging down from branches, a ladder or the rigging of a ship may well require a climb roll, or a DES roll for balance. An attack against a barely visible foe or in darkness might require a perception roll, or be capped by the perception skill. Someone with altered perception may have to roll some other perception to avoid hitting mundane obstacles. As a GM I like luring adventurers into positions where they are disadvantaged, like entering dwarf tunnels only 1,4 meters high, fighting ducks on swampy ground or fighting on a snow surface that may let the fighters sink in more than ankle deep, etc. In positions with precarious balance (like on the pole before a chariot), the defender might defend only with DEX against knockback attempts.

Some of those used to be auctioned off for quite high amounts at Convulsion or so, with pretty much of a "do not share" attached, others were read out by Greg at those conventions, with a few even being recorded. Then (probably, didn't have the means for that) all this stuff got packed into a set of exclusive hardcovers to the highest level supporters of the Guide Kickstarter. Some of the content of e.g. Hrestols Saga was subsequently published on glorantha.com, like "Kings of Seshnela" (part 1 only in Hrestol's Saga, IIRC) or the Pendali kings list. Then a great amount of detail was sifted out of these stories and worked into the Guide - compare the Fronela entries in the Guide with the chapter in Genertela Book, or look e.g. at the list of old Ralian deities encountered by the Seshnegi. Quite a lot of this is right under our noses, and some bits were commented on in the Guide Group Read (which unfortunately hasn't got to Seshnela or the Wastes yet, leaving two of the more crucial regions of Genertela under-explored).

Sure. Trying to make this idea work with the information we have here and now, not to shoot it down. Actually, there was some information on the 'newts and their weird ways even before RQ, hinted at in the Dragon Pass/ WBRM background for the dinosaurs and how they could cocoon up to emerge as pteranodons in some form of atonement.

Even if you just take a look at the Gods Wall you see the mi of non-Dara Happan deities making an appearance, more than mentioned in the Muster of Murharzarm/Urvairinus depictions of similar age. From a Lunar novel fragment Greg read at Convulsion (I think 1998), the weeders (who appear in the Six Ages tutorial I saw on YouTube) are still around in the Lunar Empire, part of the (lowest) Dara Happan stratum, a kind of non-feathered, non-beaked durulz with their way of life and available resources. You may encounter such people in the cities only occasionally, visiting the market, but they don't usually exert much if any influence on politics while remaining in their cultural niche. It appears to be possible to become Lunar to some extent and still maintain the original cultural niche, but the consequence of riddle illumination appears to be the formation of urban mobs with at best semi-digested encounters of the Ultimate following spiritual teachers of varying insights. The Fortunate Succession mentions several such outbreaks, among those the Spolite fad which led to a dynastic split in the Empire. The Pelandans are a kind of meta-culture where each city has quite distinctive cultural features, a diversity similar to the East Isles, with everyday deities varying but a set of Jernotian High Gods (more than seven, though) held in common. More than one of the Jernotian High Gods are claimed as precursor (and ongoing) incarnations of Sedenya. There also appear to have been phases where Dara Happan yelmic nobility was actively recruited to replace a former urban dynasty outside of Dara Happa, a bit like the 19th century Greek monarchy importing rulers from the multitude of German principalities, or the onw of rhw East Germanic tribes looking for suitable nobles to lead them from their distant homelands in the north after their dynasty died out during the Migration Age.

Nothing that three simultaneous castings of Heal Body couldn't cure, really... or as many more as bodyguards (and perhaps the occasional wolf pirate) getting into the patty. More seriously, if any of these three were heroquesters who had established their back door out of the Underworld, even Death by Harrek or having one's mortal remains eaten by trolls doesn't have to be permanent.

Impressive that it could advance despite this very serious entanglement... or did it regress to scout stage?

There is a period of uncertainty between breath leaving the body and receiving the verdict at the Court of Silence where not even Humakti souls are completely within the domain of the deity. There are also other ways to enter and leave the domain of Humakt, and there are heroic return routes from the Underworld, neither of which compromise Humakt's ownership of Death. The Biturian encounter at Horngate includes Biturian's horror at Alain's tormented spirit remaining in this world. There also was a specific subcult which had the benefit of making resurrection impossible - IIRC the one tied to the Lead Cross heroquest which slaughters White Healers. Details in Tales of the Reaching Moon #5 (the only issue that ever was reprinted). Edit: IIRC the subcult was Ian Starcere, named after a Humakti player who felt that Humakti should be impossible to resurrect at all.

Familiars as in allied spirits yes. RQ3 adept sorcerers' sorcerous familiars as in e.g. nymphs given permanent bodies, as an extension of the sorcerers magical self, are something completely different, and something I have never used for Glorantha. That's a setting issue about as important as the shaman's fetch or a priest's rune point pool, an expression the advanced magical "organ" of a specialist magician. The RQ3 manipulation skills that disappeared (fairly unmourned) with the new approach to Sorcery have been replaced by the six techniques also used in HQG. Each spell as as separate skill is of course a bigger hurdle than having spells as (positive) break-outs of a grimoire ability. The absence of grimoires in RQG (so far) is far more troubling to me than the absence of a Law Rune with percentiles, or Condition runes other than Moon or Chaos. I am quite happy with the direction of the technique/rune combo spell-casting, though I need to play this through to see its applicability. Would it bother anyone if the magic would be called Battle Magic or Common Magic rather than Spirit Magic? In White Wolf's 1st edition Mage I played a virtual adept whose spirits were algorithms. I think that a materialist Westerner would regard non-ancestral ones as similar, with some weird UI quirk one might be able to pamper to save effort. In the example of the powerful gale, acknowledging this individuality quirk may have been what hampered the sorcerer trying to hold back on the damage to his allies, interposing himself with the original targets. That's the danger with accepting pagan concepts in magic. I have read less of those fragments than I would have liked to read, too... but both Zzabur and the God Learners (such as the Free Men of the Sea) summoned and commanded deities (or deity-scale elementals) to do their bidding. Pulling lesser such entities out of some prison, preferably on some magical leash, sounds perfectly normal. I am not sure whether they really contain "lore" in the sense of canonical material, but they sure provide ideas and concepts tat shaped our current picture of the West. The notions that were put forward in Hero Wars, HeroQuest 1 or Stafford Library books from that era are probably as hard to retain. I was quite comfortable with the concept of low orders of sorcery as per HQ1. Yes. And that's fundamentally different from the role of familiars in RQ3. The absence of the permanent Mindlink is a major difference even for allied or cult spirits residing in beasts. While communication (at least the giving of orders) is possible, and non-verbal responses may be trained/agreed upon with intelligent spirits inhabiting animals unable to use spoken language, mental communication requires ranged magic or touch.

These familiars are basically the allied spirits bound into creatures that abound in e.g. Griffin Mountain, and not the mindlinked sorcerous creation (and source of Free INT) of RQ3. So no, the familiar to which the apprentice sorcerer had to sacrifice a point of POW in order to be able to learn the principles of advanced sorcery (other manipulation skills than Intensity) doesn't exist in RQG. From what I see, the enchantments listed under spirit magic are usable by sorcerers as well, and may be bound into spell matices (pretty much like inscribed spells, but can be inherited), in order not to take up any Free INT. The enchanter only has to pour one point of personal POW into an enchantment if he has enough volunteers to provide additional POW - one might assume that the customer of the enchanter might be a donor, or very dedicated followers. There is a question whether voluntary POW donation might be asked for as ransom... If you read the Hepherones text or some of the western novel fragments, commanding "pagan" entities (including deities) to do their innate magic is pretty much exactly what accomplished sorcerers do. A sorcerer may acquire a spirit spell matrix and use it just like any other character. He may even learn the spirit spell himself, make the enchantment himself, and then "forget" that spell to free up his INT, but binding that entity and commanding it to do its stuff may be more in keeping with Malkioni exceptionalism. I don't explicitely see the ability of bound spirits to provide magic points to their binder, or at least I haven't seen it yet. They might be controlled to "use" a magic point matrix or a crystal, i.e. to fill it, and possibly that could be made a standing order (though I don't see the means for that explicitely written). Passing on that matrix/crystal would then enable the user of the item to access those magic points. The Malkioni "Worship (Invisible God)" and weekly worship services (presumably on Godsday) are mentioned in the sorcery chapter, and that the Malkioni sorcerer may use the skill to access a portion of the magic points sacrificed in that service before passing them on up the chain. Such excess MP probably need to go into storages, unless they work similar to tapped MP in excess of the personal maximum (which remain available for the duration of the Tap spell). My main eye-rubbing realization of RQG sorcery is that the vast majority of Malkioni probably are Daka Fal cultists (just as mentioned in Cults of Prax) as the non-zzabur castes (usually? always?) don't learn sorcery, but spirit magic, and possibly some rune magic. Aeolianism as described under sorcery puts this to the extreme - Free Men and Nobles learn (Heortling. or at least Heortling-style) spirit and rune magic, and only their Sorcerer caste learns sorcery. Other than possibly participating in some analog to the "Worship (Invisible God)" weekly rites (not sure whether they do) which might benefit their sorcerers, what is the difference between the non-wizard castes and Heortlings? Are we back to something resembling my original suggestions on the Daily in the 1990ies, only minus personal sorcery for non-wizards? Also interesting: what (if any) magic do the less intelligent members of their wizard caste wield (those with INT 13 or less)? It doesn't have to be spell magic, I'd be fine with them acting as assistant enchanters or folk applying rote learning in preparation of magical material for their spell casters. I begin to understand why Heortland (apart from the Volsaxi lands around Whitewall) hasn't been selected as a Homeland, and how cosmopolitan Nochet with all its foreign cults with memberships in tribal size may remain a somewhat distant setting for RQG.

Cults based purely on Power runes have it harder already. Elemental cultists can easily have their cult rune with scores beyond 100%, whereas cults like LM, Issaries, Humakt or Chalana Arroy can have at best 100% in their cult runes, pushing the opposite rune to zero, with more extreme limitations on their behavior than elemental runes in that range. Nothing stops them from having elemental runes that high, but they don't benefit in their cults from any of that. A LM initiate wishing for intellectual inspiration as an augment may be better off to use the Fire rune than the Truth rune. As per cults of Prax, they would have looked for that in their wives rather than in themselves. Reducing the number of runes you need to attune to isn't necessarily a bad thing. The skill list still is quite long, compared to the dozen or so abilities a HQ character would use.