Pentallion

Well, this doesn't seem sufficient a concern to interrupt someone busy at Kraken. If they happen upon this thread and choose to reply, then fine. If not, then I'm going to rule no on the grounds that for unknown reasons having to do with the mystical nature of Glorantha, every person who has ever had the idea ultimately died shortly there after when a mysterious flying hula hoop passed over them. In fact, this may even be one of the God Learner secrets people aren't supposed to know. Even coming up with the idea gets people killed.

Okay, so hexagonal shaped frisbee. Or even a square frisbee. What with flight spells, they needn't be aerodynamically designed.

That might seem like a relevant question, but actually it is not. While one might claim the caster stands inside the hoop when he casts warding it has been proven that it is not necessary. In every instance of Warding in every RQ product ever produced, the caster need not remain within the area of the warding and in some descriptions of the layout of the warding spell, it is obvious that the caster could not have been within the warding at the time of the casting as it's dimensions are too small. All that matters is that someone else enter the warding area, and as I said in the above post, Gondo Holst has a moving warding spell in a wagon and if someone even passed under the wagaon, per RAW, they get hit with the warding spell. Just waving the Hoop of Death over the targets head would be enough to set it off. I'm thinking evil frisbee at a large concert.... And just to be clear, I intend to rule that No, you can't do this. But I'd rather have a logical reason that stands up to a rational attack on it's foundation than because it breaks the game. I throw the latter reason out there and they call MGF and before you know it, Hula Hoop of Death gets an LLC license and every Geo's sells them. This is why I'm taking my appeal directly to Chaosium. Why is it, Greg, Jeff, Sandy, Rick...that Orlanthi magicians don't cast flight spells on mobile disks with Warding and toss them out there to frisbee to death the whole Lunar army?

Ahhh, but now we're having a philosophical debate. As such, I must quote the famous Magi Minestein who, when he discovered that Entropy equals Magic times Chaos squared (e=mc^2) said all things are Relative. One could say the hoop was moving relative to the person, but it is the hoop that is the point of reference for the spell and from the hoops point of reference, everything moves but the hoop. All of Glorantha passes under the hoop. The target moves into the hoop. Now much as I'd love to anchor the hoop to Glorantha and say the warding spell requires the hoop to be immobile, the great Chaos theorist Gondo Holst has already proven that the hoop can move when he created his moving Warded wagon. If you crawled under the wagon, with no intent to enter the wagon, you still enter the Warding spells area of effect and are hit with the warding spell. Same works for the hoop of death.

Then they're going to point out, and rightly so, that in official published material, they've seen stakes planted in lots of creative ways that don't include the ground. They'll point out one adventure I can think of where the stakes were irremovable, having been built into the structure itself.

So one of my players has discovered the joys of warding. He wants to put the stakes inside a metal ring and use the huge ring, more like a hoop, as a weapon. "Here, enter my warding 4 hoop and die." I could easily rule, "No. Because I said so." But logically, it's a freaking brutal weapon that seems to work according to RAW. And a MGF ruling says yeah, but a gee that breaks the game ruling might say otherwise. So what would be Chaosium's take on this?

How will all this magic affect the economy and society? Obviously, healing services would be only for major injuries that the Heal spell can't handle, like Regrow Limb and Resurrect as well as diseases and spirit infestations and chaos. Therefore safety issues become less of a concern. Minor injuries don't take you out of the workforce and even major injuries aren't as terrifying to Gloranthans as they would be on Earth. So you'd have more risk takers. Also, risk takers can be ressed, patched up. This is a big deal because sociologists on our world have often cited that many of the risk takers that existed pre-WW1 died off in the Great War and we lost more in WW2 and that since it's a genetic trait, the species is now more averse to risk than it used to be in prior centuries. ie, less people exist nowadays who have the "Right Stuff". Even our music bemoans "where are all the heroes/cowboys/ etc." That's not just a sense or feeling of nostalgia, it's an actual genetic fact. Gloranthan risk takers don't have this problem to such a high degree, which is probably what made the Hero Wars inevitable. This, however, creates a contradiction. We have people who are less averse to risk, but we have battlefield logistics which say we must withdraw before the battle is truly decided while we can still reclaim our wounded and dead for healing. How does society resolve this conflict? Battles between great heroes would be the obvious solution. This mitigates the risk of losing large portions of an army to rout. When one sides Ajax falls, that side withdraws, preferably with Ajax. Nothing would be more demoralizing than to see Achilles dragging Hector behind his chariot. You lost your Hero, your risk taker. Any battles now require either a new hero or the loss of many men as there's no longer a metric to decide when to retreat. Such a loss means defeat. So decisive battles that see the enemy routed and wiped out would be exceptionally rare. Losses in WB/RM would be expressed in units pulling out of the fight more than they would as deaths and dismemberments. War does not become so much a chess match of taking out the other guys king, which would increase casualties amongst the pawns, it becomes a clash of kings on the board while the others simply maneuver to do whatever damage they can, while not over committing. When one hero or band of heroes defeat the other, that side withdraws. This part is the actual battle: Being in a tactical position to reclaim the body of your heroes when they go down. That's the whole battle right there and most times, you can't win it because their hero is standing over the corpse. Then withdraw. There'd be no routs with cavalry rushing in to chop off the heads of the enemy fleeing as the enemy would strive to retreat in good order, never having wasted manpower in a decisive battle. Still want to know how the ubiquitous nature of magic affects the economy. That's a bit harder for me to think through.

Thats another issue I have. The great winter decimates the Orlanthi population. Where do they get the manpower to carry out all the battles they do in the following years? The Lunars have a vast pool of manpower to draw upon but at least they get bogged down on multiple fronts and have a civil war. But either the gods blessed Sartar with a massive population explosion in the years running up to the great winter or else theres a lot of ressurections going on on a massive scale for them to keep fielding armies. Then consider that with every battle lost comes the permanent loss of manpower because the enemy holds the battlefield so you cant ressurect the dead, cast regrow limbs, etc. Such logistical realities demand an army withdraw with as many dead and wounded as possible. Magic thus dictates fundamental military doctrine.

The availability discussion completely derailed the socio-econimc discussion. It's fairly canonically grounded that even the Orlanthi peasants have access to Barntar magic and heal 2 spells. LLet's get back to the original discussion using that as the given baseline and for those who disagree say YGMV. I'd seriously like to analyze what such a world would be like where injuries are easily healed, tools easily repaired, productivity magically increased, etc. For one thing, if you look at the population of Sartar from the GtG and then play RM/WB you have to acknowledge either the Sartarites reproduce like rabbits or they Resurrect a lot of dead warriors and heal up a ton of wounded on a massive scale

Can't wait for Volume 6 to come out!!!

Well, as of tonight she's stolen the bones of Gamara's wings from ZZ's lair of debris (more fitting in my mind than trophy room). Now she's off to complete the quest. Thank you all for all the great information you emparted.

You are mistaken - possibly Gregged - about the Demon steeds. He raided them from Yelm's pasture in Hell. His herd represents but a fraction of what Yelm still keeps. They followed Yelm to Hell and their existence in hell changed them, but they are horses and descended from Hippogriff. Per Jeff Richards, this is the Demon Steed that we will see in RQG: My PC rides one of Yelm's demon steeds, not one of Ethilrist. Ethilrist would be most displeased to have her summon one of his away.

Well, the idea is she gives Gamara/Hippogriff back her wings and that's how she gets out of hell. Which is why I'm trying to learn how the hippogriffs returned. And I agree with soltakss, it was probably something the EWF did. Unfortunately, the PC was taken involuntarily to hell on her demon steed, while unconcious. So she didn't happen to bring a fancy golden wove set of wings. I see how they brought Hofstarings hands back and then he leaped out of hell, so the same idea means bring Gamara's wings back. I suppose get the wingbones from ZZ and put them back on. Once Hofstarings hands were put on his stumps, they magically reattached themselves. I could see placing the wing bones on her, being as she's a God of Hippogriffs and Hofstaring was just a Hero, that she could magically sprout full blown wings again. At some point, you just have to say mythical enough, the game must go on.

Then regrow limbs on Gamara will have to suffice.

Maybe get the wings from ZZ and take them to Gamara in lunar hell. Sounds like a plan.

Thanks, I don't have any of the WF's. That will help greatly. Instead of facing a demon griffin in Lunar Hell, my player will face a ZZ. Alas, that means no lunar hell, so I have more work ahead of me, I can't just use SKoH's for my stations. But my premise is her black horse demon steed already has its fangs and claws back so if she can get the wings back, she can return from Hell with her Black Horse transformed into a hippogriff. Now I just need to make up the rebirth myth Source and Master taught the first hippogriffs to return to the mortal world. Since the player is a Lunar, her moon rune might come in handy there.

Hippoi/Gamara had his(her) wings and fangs shorn. Then Elmal(Yelmalio?) took it in and named it horse. Thus began the horse cultures. Hippogriffs were later reborn (how?) and hate Griffins for their betrayal, suggesting, perhaps, that Yelm had a hand in the torture of Gamara. But search as I may, I can find nothing about how/why Hippoi was so mistreated. I could use that myth right about now or the story of how Hippogriff was reborn. This is all I could find:

Maybe he always passes gas....

Again, long time between posts. A lot has happened to my dysfunctional band of heroes. I use the last word loosely. Two years have passed. Cedi has died once more since Jon completed his quest and she returned to his side 3 days later. Unbeknownst to Jon, she harbors a burning desire to kill him. I gave her a special form of death rune (more than a passion to kill Jon, it's also a passion to let people die) and each time she dies and comes back, that dark part of her grows and the rune increases. Keener Than betrays Ethilrist, Sheng betrays Argrath and Cedi will betray Jon Rain. In order to do this, Cedi has convinced Jon to train her in the ways of Fjordaur. She's now an initiate of the God of Murder as well as an Etyries merchant. The trolls have declared themselves enemies of the Empire, but the Blue Moon trolls continue to provide their services and have made no statement whatsoever. Secretly, however, Bina Bang has ordered the PCs to befriend Count Julan the Coder and await orders to betray him. Bina Bang also ordered Clarice and Bertha to then kill the rest of the party members. Razza has a split personality named Azzar. It is her allied spirit for becoming a Spindle Hag. Azzar has taken the chaos rune and prefers to summon Hellmount, her demon steed. Razza, as always, is meek and peaceful. Nymphia was summoned by the Great Sister. She alone is privy to Sister's plan to enact Hon-Eels rites and sacrifice her brother, the Red Emperor. Nymphia is central to these plans. She tells no one, especially her sister Razza, who would object. Skef is a shaman now and learned from Raven the secret of reaching the hidden place within the megaliths. Raven did this to save Fiery Fox, whom others call Firshala, from the coming Dark Age. Skef seeks to become a High Shaman so that he can teach other shamans the secret way and one day save all Eolians from the end of the world. Azibo has changed dramatically. One day Skef came across a strange spirit in the Otherworld. He kept it and showed it to Azibo. Azibo saw that the spirit held her doom and being a shaman of Aranea, she allowed the spirit to passively possess her. Now she feels a burning rage inside and sometimes cannot control it. She terrifies the others when she goes into her berserk rages, but so far Skef has been able to control her. During this time, they've been working for the Count and gaining his trust. He sent them on a heroquest in which they - well, Cedi actually - made a pact with the river Styx to call upon her aid should they face vampires. They suspect a rift between Julan and the Red Emperor and figure this has something to do with the Vampire Legion. The pact with Styx means Cedi can call upon her aid one time, but that she can then pass on the oath to her son who also may call upon the Styx aid one time. (in the future, at the Battle of Moralisor, her son will use this power to help Argrath get past the Vampire Legion and kill the Red Emperor, whom Sheng Seleris then eats). And so that brings us to last night... Count Julan had been summoned to the Red Emperor to discuss battle plans. He suspected treachery so Jon Rain had disguised himself to appear as the Count while Bertha and Clarice secretly escorted Julan to the Emperors HQs. Razza, however, said she wanted no part of the violence and stayed behind. As expected, assassins struck the Counts retinue as they passed through the city. The PCs moved to stop them. After the others had gone, Razza began to argue with herself. Her friends might need her, Azzar said. But there would be killing and the White Moon seeks peace, Razza softly replied. Yessss, Azzar agreed, there will be much killing. Razza bowed her head and when she raised it again, her features had changed dramatically. An evil grin spread across her face. She called upon Hellmount and soon was speeding towards the town upon her demon steed, laughing madly. Jon Rain relaxed his grip upon the dead assassins throat and looked out from the rooftop to see chaos had erupted in the streets. In the distance, Azibo roared in rage. Several more assassins appeared on nearby roofs. They'd be targeting their spells at him, thinking he was the Count. Suddenly, he saw Razza streaking down the main street upon her demon steed. That would be Azzar he thought to himself. A strange thing happened then. The assassins all turned their attention on Razza, hurling their Shatter spells at her from above. Razza slumped over and Hellmount must have taken over the rider for she did not fall from the horse. Instead, a crack opened up before them and Hellmount leaped into it as it closed behind him. He'd taken Razza straight to Hell. Later, after the assassins had been driven off and the Count had returned from his meeting with the Red Emperor, the Count had resurrected one of the dead. They wrenched the truth from him. It was the Red Emperor who had hired them to kill Julan. But Skef saw he was keeping a secret. Julan hadn't been their primary target. Their true mission was to kill the Jakaleel witch. He did not know why. I suppose as GM I am allowed to post a diary too. The Whistler had Cedi's child and the two of them walked into his ambush. All I can say is it was an epic fight and even though afterwards it was very late and we all needed to sleep, everyone kept going on about it for another hour. No one knew, but long ago the man now known as The Whistler had been an entertainer. His ventriloquism wowed the audience as he performed with his pet, Sparky the Wonder Dog. Then one day he'd caught his lover with another man. As his hands wrapped around her throat squeezed the last breathe out of her he gave his newfound devotion to Fjordaur, the God of Murder. After many such killings, he'd been rewarded with an allied spirit - an allied demon actually - that took the form of his favorite pet. Now The Whistler and Sparky the Wonder Dog were the most feared assassins in the Lunar Empire. Every High Holy Day, the worshippers of Fjordaur played a little game of Hide and Seek where they were to kill one of their own members with either their bare hands or the silken cords. This keeps the cult small, yet talented. Jon Rain, of course, intended to kill Cedi, since she could not stay dead. Cedi, however, had other plans. The red moon shined brightly the night they entered the sleeping city of Jarabuli. The two of them chatted quietly as they slipped down the empty streets. It was Cedi who heard the whistling. She recognized the tune. "Dear Goddess, I know I have strayed from our path lately, but please give my feet swiftness and I promise you, after I am done here, I will return to the paths we used to walk together." Cedi prayed. The Goddess heard her prayer and Cedi quickly sped away from Jon and climbed upon a nearby rooftop. Taking her cue, Jon quickly climbed upon another rooftop and scanned the streets below. Cedi reached into her pouch and pulled out a small vial. This stuff better work, she whispered to herself and she downed the poison antidote. Then she brought out the paralytic poison she purchased and spread it on her silken cord. She knew she was no match for Jon and hoped this would give her the advantage. In the shadows below, The Whistler spoke telepathically to Sparky. "Distract the girl so I can find Jon Rain." Sparky grunted and began to sing. Cedi heard the song wafting from the street below, but she could not see who was singing it. The words, however, stung her soul. "When you were young and your heart was an open book, you used to say "live and let live", you know you did, you know you did, you know you did. But then this ever changing world in which we live in made you give in and cry.... and say "live and let die!" Moments later, she heard Jon Rain leap from his perch and the sound of struggle somewhere down one of the alleyways below. She quickly sped off to find him. Amazingly, Jon Rain had gotten the better of The Whistler and had his silk cord tightly around his throat. A spell flew past Cedi as she ran towards them and she spun to find Sparky the Wonder Dog racing to save his Master. She took a swipe at him but the dog easily sidestepped it as it shot past her. By the time she got there, the Whistler had fallen to his knees. Sparky was ripping into Jon, but Jon wore a magic cloak that protected him from the dogs abnormally long claws and vicious fangs. Cedi ignored the dog and stepped behind Jon Rain, slipping her own silk cord over his head and around his neck, knowing the poison would quickly take effect. At least, she tried, but the cord caught on something on his helm and she pulled too hard upon it and the cord broke. (Don't fumbles just suck? This one was a game changer.) Cedi screamed in rage and tried to strangle Jon, but the Whistler had fallen dead at his feet and he easily broke free of Cedi's feeble attempts to choke him. Just then, however, the demon dogs claws finally found flesh and Jon screamed in agony as his left arm was left shredded and useless hanging by his side. Sparky would have fallen upon him and finished him right then, but no way was Cedi letting the dog steal her kill so she lashed out at it and it turned her attention upon her. As its claws ripped away the tendons and scraped the bones of her own left arm she realized she may have made a fatal mistake. Cedi and Jon both slipped in and out of consciousness. Jons allied spirit in his silken cord cast Moonwalk upon him. Cedi drank from several healing potions, then got up and tried to strangle Jon again. He awoke, however, and cast her off of him in a heroic effort, then crawled away upon a moon beam. She tried to pull him down but only succeeded in hurting herself as she fell from some height. Jon had gotten away. Razza finally awoke. She was laying upon Hellmane. As she looked around she saw nothing but ruin and devastation. "where am I?"

I still have the miniature set. Painted the two of them to match the picture exactly.

I can't help but think they'd make a profit if they sold the board game again.

I live near Seattle, Wa. I just got an email this morning confirming my order, so I think it's finally on its way.

Still waiting on my copy. Filled out the survey a long time ago. Got the Nomad Gods pdf. But so far no Khan of Khans.

Hahaha! If you only knew the things they've done to fulfill an oath to him and now they're returning and he's dead. No reward. Oh, that'll be rich!

by 1627? We've gotten our characters up to that point and are just waiting for RQG to come out to continue, but the question of what happened to Hargan the Dirty has become rather important to our campaign.