Joerg

POW is expended to create a permanent magical effect. The existence of family heirlooms makes it clear that the creators of these items are long dead (whether they were part of the ancestors, or the beneficiaries of some non-ancestor enchanter). There is no requirement for the heir to re-spend POW to keep these going. Also, this view leads to an interesting conundrum in case the enchanter receives voluntary POW contributions by a bunch of donors. Does the enchantment get weakened as these donors die off? POW can be donated to spirits as part of a bargain. POW is donated to community wyters on a somewhat regular base. Does such donated POW dissipate when the donor dies? Would your wyter fall apart if all the most recent donors died? Would you want to keep track of this donated POW in your game? By definition, Dead Crystals are the crystallized blood of deities that died in the Gods War. Gods that weren't around when Time was conceived, who then left the Underworld - a few earlier than others (Tolat, Lightfore), others in a great big bunch upon the Dawn. Now Godtime is persistent, and deities that simply Died within Godtime without being returned to the Universe of Time still exist in that layered amount of Godtime. Their blood doesn't actively interact with the Source of Energy any more, though, and thus may only receive Life Force, but doesn't generate it any more. How would a deity be "entirely dead"? Umath was dismembered beyond any ability to re-assemble. The Thunderstones that can be collected in Thunder Delta still are pretty much "alive". Vadrus wasn't heard of any more after some point in the Gods War, possibly having suffered Death and/or dismemberment, or possibly transformed into something (or rather someone) else. It's either/or. From a minimaxing point, adventurers would only use low MP capacity crystals to store spirits if given the choice, and probably seek the aid of a specialist in case they obtain a lower capacity crystal than the one they are currently employing to hose the spirit. (Unless they prefer to house another spirit.) The hoary and very confusing RQ1/RQ2 chestnut of "temporary POW" rather than "MP". There is no information how long the "attunement" of an unpowered crystal takes, or what happens when you try to attune somebody else's unpowered crystal that contains either stored MP or a bound spirit while the former owner still is alive. Even worse, it doesn't tell us what to do with spirits bound into a crystal while you re-attune a dead crystal you de-attuned in order to attune to an unknown crystal, and how long that re-attunement takes. W&E p.119: Does that mean that all MP and spirits stored in the collection of unpowered crystals are lost (or need to be expended if you want to make the best use of them, or temporarily be housed elsewhere such as binding enchantments or a shaman's fetch)? A POW gain roll only applies to attuning the powered crystal. How long does this process take for each unpowered crystal (and how do you take that MP out of a crystal designated to hold a spirit?), and how long does it take for your powered crystal that you previously were attuned to? Without a chance of failure for the old one. Essentially, a powerful character could own a small selection of powered crystals, abandon attunement of the currently attuned powered crystal and re-attune one of the others. How long does this take? No spirit is powerful enough to push aside a droplet of the living deity's life force. You mean you don't get the egg-laying lactating woolly sow? The scenario authors have clearly disregarded limits put into crystals in the published scenarios (e.g. in the Smoking Ruins the crystals in Dera Zarka's harp with a capacity of 1 point each on p.18 or Urvantan's unpowered 17 points crystal on p.139). The "Extra POW, roll again and add 1D6 POW" on a roll of 02 does allow unpowered crystals greater than 15 MP. It also allows weird combinations of powered crystals. Leaving aside that I disagree with your concept of "mortal enchantments" as the norm: Essentially, how to kill (a portion of) a god? Tap Body (Tap SIZ) is the only sample "Tap <characteristic> spell in the rules, and it can reduce the target's SIZ down to 1. Tap POW might be able to go down to zero, killing the target. The vampiric re-awakening is similar to a resurrection in this regard - the former body becomes Dead. Any previous bindings etc. are lost.

The Monastery could be a dojo perpetuating some orthodox mystical martial arts from the EWF era. Certified dragon-free, I suppose, not at all like that Red Dragon School away in Ormsgone Valley. Possibly set up by Godunya to teach the Third Council by example after they strayed from the draconic orthodoxy of the Long Mountain Dragon School.

There is a multiverse of World Machines spanning the outer realms between the Source and the Void. These are the implementations of Blueprint limiting the potential of the Void with the Energy from the Source. The World Machines started out as a fabricator that transformed itself to the thing we call universe. It is a self-extracting package placed in between the Void of Unlimited Potential ()a very dense state of quantum vacuum) and the Source of Unlimited Energy (unlimited at least for the period of observation available to us). Basically, it is a von Neumann-drone seeded into this inter-dimensional non-space outside of the Void. It had a collector and filter for the raw potential, the Chaosium, and it had another collector for the raw energy of the Source. The World Machine had a self-extracting blueprint, which was inscribed in adamantium on the surface of the Spike as it was made from the output of the Chaosium. The Chaosium had a blueprint of its own which it spawned as the emerging elemental blueprints were acted on. This was Grower, a force designed to collect energy from the Source and to manifest as living matter, to be consumed by the Maker. This blueprint was not set in Adamanrium, but imprinted on far more malleable elemental bodies, which allowed it to alter over generations of reproductive cycles. Many of these alterations were predicted by the blueprint, but they did not account for the random waste that could escape the Chaosium when there were unpredicted fluctuation in the intake of potential from the Void. Usually these fluctuations would be contained by incorruptable Adamantium containers and fed into the Chaosium in periods of lesser activity, but even this precaution measure, while being designed to expand along with the base of the Spike. The Chaosium was expanded only with the power of 2 of the extension of the Spike and not with the power of 3 like the matter extruded, which should have allowed control of the Void intake. Unfortunately, the initial assignment of Void Storage ran slightly above predicted future capacity during the adjustment phase. As a result, there was occasional spill-over into the Darkness Below. The Master Blueprint, while inscribed in Adamantium, was a living entity, which mortals recognize as the Greatest Goddess Glorantha. (More to follow, with more World Machine perspective and possibly unnecessary details on the implementation of the Blueprint, in a separate post. Stuff of interest only to the Mostali.) The Invisible God thought things up, and energy interacted with matter according to primal principles. Batteries included, no assembly needed. Did he think up the Blueprint for Glorantha? If yes, did he assign Danmalastan to the World Machine project in one of the four slots around the Spike?

I still need to be convinced that "living" requires a permanent physical body. Take a spirit to the Dead Place and it will manifest physically. POW is the measure of the magical productivity of an entity's life force. Spirits do produce magic, that's why people are eager to bind them. If not life-force, what do they draw the energy from? Can't be the spirit plane if they are imprisoned in the mundane plane, or can it? Living doesn't require biology, either - "the living land" or "living rock" aren't impossible in Glorantha. And microbial activity often translates as elemental activity. A Binding other than storage in a crystal or a purpose-made matrix? Putting a spirit into one of these doesn't require POW, just highly ephemeral MP or rune points. Placing such an enchantment on a physical biological being (such as an animal or a tree) removes the "object" from the enchantment. If it is this kind of animal companion that you mean with your category "created binding", I am with you.

Zzabur begs to differ, in his One World text in Revealed Mythologies. Neither the One World or the Maseren/Paseren concept were incorporated into the Monomyth, yet they remain somewhat relevant to Malkioni sorcery and use of the Abiding Book.

In case of an orderly transition from owner to heir and a spirit in an artifact or a crystal, all it takes is a "Control entity" spirit spell and a "Bind Spirit" spell. The Control Entity" spell could be cast by just about anybody, calling the spirit out of the object and to stand ready for a binding (perhaps even "don't resist the re-biniding"?), while the Binding needs to be cast by the "heir" whose life now is supposed to maintain the enchantment. With animal companions, this does not seem to be feasible.

YRQMV. Presenting a deity just as a character template is somewhat beside the point IMO. Something like a set of quick reference cards? Sounds like a different product, really. Might be feasible.

When it comes to binding a spirit into a dead crystal, one may argue that the binding is into a Godtime object that transited over into the Middle World. Can a spirit volunteer to bind themselves? The Humakti "Bind Ghost" seems to suggest such a thing. And the reason for ghosts is lingering attachment to the Middle World, isn't it? As usual, the rules keep a number of options away from the player characters because the designers don't think of these as enhancing their and/or their main audience's game fun. If there was a sustainable way of producing powered magical artifacts that survive the death of the maker, certain players would latch onto that idea and possibly flood their environment with such. A non-sustainable method might be an artificer master's "dying breath of bestowal", transiting part of his life to a small range of to-be-finished master pieces which then would indeed be pieces of the master. Something like that would be harder to exploit.

´The difference between Brithini and Mostali is that Brithini claim to be natural descendants (Srvuali) of the Man Rune, whereas Mostali were Made Creatures created (if not even constructed) by Mostal the Maker. The Brithini are one of the splinter groups of the original people of Danmalastan, the backwater exiles mostly of the Enrovalini but buffered with refugees from the Tadeniti and Kadeniti and possibly some Kachasti. The subsequent purges of "dissdents" from Brithos might have been ethnic cleansing banishing this refugee population. The Mostali remained mostly on the Spike and/or in Mt. Thakarn (Magnetic Mountain), with only some lesser work forces spread around the rest of the surface world. The Somelz reconstruction (centered on Slon) may have been the biggest such project,

From the alchemists' guild which usually is an extension of the Knowledge Temple. If you desire, there may be missions for gathering exotic material posted at that guild, either accompanying a guild official or restricted to parties with a registered alchemist to do the harvesting.

Don't be silly, next thing will be anthropomorphic ducks or sapient tapirs! 😉

Ancestral tapping? Note that Zzaburi are supposed to be tall (if somewhat skeletous). The culprits may have been Vadeli, who ruled most of the Malkioni world after the Double Belligerent Assault.

The old Rune Masters characters were badly mini-maxed with their spirit zoos - in their steeds and other companion animals, plus plenty in crystals. The steeds aren't eligible in RQG except as allied spirits from Eiritha or Waha. The total amount of spirit magic now is limited to the Charisma attribute, but that can be overcome by moving some spells known by spirits other than the allied spirit to enchantments (which weren't part of the RQ2 rules). Of the characteristics, INT and SIZ should be in the 8-20 range, any values up to 10 might benefit from a slight upward adjustment. CHA is essential for rune lords and needs to be adjusted, in case of doubt by the use of ostentatious trimmings. Other than that, use such characters as you see fit, allow for some overpowered skills if you feel they are what your characters are supposed to face.

From the description of the Brithini in Arolanit (in the Guide as well as the earlier Genertela Box, and from Malkioni history - the Vadeli uprising against the Kachisti in western Genertela) we know that there is a Malkioni sorcery spell (or a combination of spells) for resurrection, but we haven't ever seen the spell in game terms. And to be honest, I would be fine keeping it this way, with only specialists from the big organisations having access to it.

They aren't anathema to Humakti, although the Humakti will aid non-voluntary ghosts to pass onward. Nymphs are rather powerful spirit beings that have a physical form most of the time. There are lesser spirits with similar much-physical presence in my Glorantha, like the household tomte (a Scandinavian kobold described in RQ3 Vikings) or spirit(or divine) beasts able to turn into a puff of wind or to merge with the ground. My Glorantha also has plant spirits that may be discorporate. The Praxian spirit vegetation digested by the herd children of Eiritha is similar (IIRC Scotty told us about that in our second Nomad Gods episode on The Godlearners).

Such as myths, the role in the world, cult structures? The elements that were missing in the three cults presented in RQ2 or in those in RQ3 Gods of Glorantha but are present in Cults of Prax?

To clarify: There is nothing in the rules suggesting that a Binding Enchantment disappears at the death of the maker. What dissipates is the spell that sent the spirit into the Binding, whether an enchantment or a dead crystal. What I suggest is that this spell would be cast by the spirit, all the rest provided by mortals. Rules exploit achieved. Weird. They generate MP with their POW while in the physical world but don't have life force? The spirit world is alive and vibrant (in most places), and spirits inhabiting places etc. have life force, too. Nymphs are able to give birth to a vast range of beings.

Oh, he may have lost it, left behind somewhere up the Rockwoods, unless he rose out of his bed in some shape (I would have guessed serpentine rather than humanoid) to face the invaders alongside allies of Genert such as Yamsur. In other words: Genert's palace is not where I would have looked for the head of the main river of Genert's Garden.

We know that Isidilian of Dwarf Mine keeps at least two sort of animal husbandry - blind cave oxen, and the human slaves forming the Cannon Cult (and serving as drivers for the Alchemical Transformer). Exploring these humans beneath Dragon Pass might be interesting. But that aside, we know that Dwarf Mine either harvests fodder from the surface, or it grows or cooks up cave oxen fodder and human food beneath the ground. The humans do the gardening, I suppose, but any surface harvest would have had to be done by dwarf servitors (nilmergs, jolanti) as humans were forbidden to walk the surface of the Pass during the Inhuman Occupation. With the exception of the Puppeteer Troupe.

There was more than only Arkat left after that encounter - there were (supposedly) 49 pieces of Nysalor/Gbaji which then got hidden away. According to a rumor the Lunars managed to collect a bit about fifty and were positive their reconstituted Nysalor contained no traces of Gbaji.

Get a spirit to cast the Binding. The binding spirit is essentially immortal.

Does that imply that any fully initiated Kitori Shadowlord is a Kaelith?

Same to my native speaker eye/ear: Vielfarbiges Kleid in modern High German.

I am a bit baffled by this - the heads of the rivers up to Sky River Titan leaping down the Skyfall were the forefront of the tentacles creeping inland. Seolinthur had its origin in Sshorg(a) and branched off to the north, to meet Genert's Palace. Earthfall was the prequel to Wakboth's chaos horde crossing the Bridge of Slime to the Spike, before that mountain imploded in the Breaking of the World, creating the void in the center of the world where Magasta collected the waters of the world in his whirlpool. That means that Seolinthur never reversed his course, that his head was always the part of him the furthest from the source in the Sshorg. Except possibly as his reaction against the invaders.

Ask the River Horse? Since it can jump from oasis to oasis, it might be able to use a dead river's headwater, too. But you would have to protect your ride against whatever you jump into (which might be gorp).