Steve

Ok, so I'm a lot more familiar with the Orlanthi than any of the other cultures, but even so there were some interesting bits and pieces here for me. Like the fact the Malkonwal and Caladraland people are mentioned here. Art confusion - why does the priestess on p.32 have an illusion rune on her left ankle? That's got to be a mistake, right? The fertility rune in her description on p.33 seems to be missing, and I guess should be here - maybe I missed it though. I totally love the double-page art spread on pp. 33-34, and the Vingan is the star of the show here. Again though, annoying variations vs the description in the side box - e.g. the bodyguard's spear is missing; the Vingan isn't presenting the head in her left hand, she's already dumped it on the table; the air and death runes described as "visible" on the severed head are invisible to me; the noblewoman is described as wearing a necklace but that looks doesn't look like a necklace to me. p.35 - the bottom of the second paragraph has a reference to "star-marking". Now clearly this is about marking stars on something, but I couldn't figure out what - jewellery? Oh, and the reversed air rune reference intrigued me greatly too.

I love the Morokanth art on p.26 too. On p.27, we start with a reference to Morokanth (1st para) living off humans. This isn't correct though, is it? As it says in the box at bottom right, it's herd-men that Morokanth live off, not humans. Also on p.27, it seems a bit odd to me that the Agimori are specifically described as not depending on their herd animals for sustenance, but presumably they're not the only ones in this boat - the baboons and Cannibal Cult too, no? It made me wonder whether the Basmoli eat their lions, the Bolo Lizard folk eat their lizards, etc. The map on p.27 shows Pentan culture, but Pentans are not referenced anywhere in this section on Prax apart from very briefly at the bottom of the second column of p.30. The p.28/p.29 art/description mismatch here (see my notes on the Hsunchen for my introduction to this issue) is the Sable Queen being described as having a flint dagger. That doesn't look like what my mind conjures up as a "flint dagger", i.e. one made out of a whole flint. Perhaps a flint-encrusted dagger? Because it seems to have a whole load of flint flakes embedded in it. Also, I don't think that the High Llama rider's axe looks like one designed for us from a tall animal. The size of the axe head and the balancing (he's not holding it at the end of the handle, as you can see) doesn't make it look like it will reach very far down, unlike the description on p.26 ("long-handled axes to reach the earth"). Sorry, this wasn't meant to be a "complaining" post, but this section raised almost as many questions as answers for me.

Good stuff here on the Doraddi. I hit a problem early on in terms of my own ignorance. In the Housing section on p.23, first paragraph, it days how the poles "double as drags" while on the move? What are "drags" in this context, please? I tried googling but there are too many meanings of the word for me to figure out what is meant here. As has been said, again this can only be a high-level overview given the massive area covered by the Doraddi, and surely their culture will have huge variances over such a large area. The mismatches between the art and art description here (see my previous comments in the Hsunchen section) are that the bow and arrows mentioned in the description of the Walker are missing from the illustration as far as I can tell. Lovely to see a culture that it totally alien to me (in Gloranthan terms) drawn out like this though. I, too, loved the "We tried that already" thing.

The Hsunchen section is very nice. The population distribution boxes, here and in the following sections, are interesting when combined with the map (see my entry in the error thread about the map legend being too small/pixellated, though). I was surprised that there were so many types of Hsunchen. I never read the RQ3 Genertela books if that was already in there, so this was new stuff to me and quite fascinating. Of course it makes sense though that if there are "beast peoples" that this would not be restricted to just one or two beast types. The descriptions seemed very good to me, and I can understand that the Hsunchen can only be skimmed here - a large book could easily be taken up on all the Hsunchen and still miss out on lots of information, I would have thought. Ok, the Laubenstein art. I have a few problems here. But first, It's very nice to see this full-page art and the Hsunchen page just gives us a tantalising glimpse of two types, perhaps posing even more questions about what there wasn't room to show. The problems, though. The proportions look off to me. Something doesn't seem quite right to my eye. But interestingly, my eye doesn't object in the same way to the sketches that @David Scott has kindly posted above. I wonder if the art was compressed slightly vertically to make it fit on the page, or something like that. Or it might just be my eyes. Secondly, I have an even bigger problem. This is common to all these depictions in this section. Unfortunately the descriptions on the page following don't quite match the art. It's as if the descriptions are the original art direction, then the artist went off and did something that didn't match 100% the direction (which is perhaps understandable), but then it's jarring when the apparent description of a picture doesn't seem to go totally with the art. Specifically here, the Rathori's shoes are described are "wide". Hmm, not in this picture they're not. They look regular width to me, and the same as the Uncoling standing next to him. The shoes' netting mentioned in the description is also missing. This bothers me because it seems "off". I will give other examples in the other sections for similar mismatches.

I have fond memories of that scenario ...

http://www.princeofsartar.com/comic/96-before-the-storm/

I see what you mean. But my take on it is an emphasis on "live only", i.e. they specifically *live* in the mundane world, and don't visit the magical world (e.g. because they are lay members of cults). Initiates will, of course, visit the magical world on Holy Days. Similarly when treated for disease, ordinary people will still be living in the mundane world, just that they need help from a priest who does have contact with that magical world.

Still good to have a longer view though, to see what's happening in the Rubble, no?

Yep, the PDF download is available now, at http://www.chaosium.com/runequest-roleplaying-in-glorantha-quickstart/ , and you can order a hard copy too from that page. Edit - some people seem to be finding the download hard to find. Go to the page above where you can purchase it, then scroll down. You'll see a couple of links to the PDF, e.g where it says "Get the Free PDF Download". Also available are PDFs for the shaman with his rules, plus character downloads and errata. Although right now it looks like the errata have been applied to the Quickstart PDF but not yet to the character downloads and the shaman. The shaman, character handouts and errata are further down the same page still, below the Quickstart PDF download links.

The region names on the culture distributions maps on pp19, 23, 27 and 31 are too small. On the print copy (KS), ok, it's small text, and with a magnifying glass you can see you're at the limits of the print resolution. Fair enough. But on the PDF (3/11/16 version), you'd expect to be able to zoom in and read the text. It's too low resolution though. e.g. you wouldn't be able to read the first word of "Holy Country" on p19 if you didn't already know what it said. Zooming in and out is (you'd hope) one of the benefits of PDF copies. Hopefully this can be fixed in an update with higher-res versions of these small maps.

ok, so bringing this out of the Guide Week One thread, so as not to derail it, @AlbertG said: ... and I replied ... So is the Ephemeris app not correct about the Sun's path, or is there a misinterpretation going on here about what it's showing? I haven't had a chance to play with it properly, other than to see that it looks extremely interesting and useful.

Sorry, I forgot that we were in the week one discussion thread. Just trying to answer your question. But it sounds like that should be in a new thread. Edit - I moved the discussion over to the Ephemeris thread.

According to p.646 of the Guide, "In winter, the Sun's orb is paler and cooler: the days are shorter and the nights are longer. On the longest night, at the Winter Solstice, the Sun is in the Underworld for twice as long as it is in the Sky".

Noticed. Just trying not to get too excited

Ooh, this is very cool, thanks!

The bit where it says: "An unencumbered adventurer not engaged in melee combat may move 8 movement units in a melee round" could equally be worded: "An unencumbered adventurer not engaged in melee combat may move a number of movement units equal to their Move value in a melee round" and would mean the same thing, just be more wordy. Given that all the starting PCs are human and all have the same Move value, I can see why they went with the less wordy option in the QS. In the full rules it might be different.

See, again no human-head-peeping-through-bear-jaws. Too hard to make it look anything other than silly without seeing him in real life? I like Joerg's input on this:

How's the progress coming on The Eleven Lights, @Ian Cooper?

Ah, I've learned lots from this thread already. Such a great idea, @David Scott. Like the fact that the hard copy dustcover explains the ouranekki board and the characters on the cover - I was going to ask who the mystical dude was, but I know now. Here we go with my notes for week one: Front cover - love it. Jon Hodgson delivers the goods again. Surely would catch the interest of anyone totally new to Glorantha and wonder who these folks are. Now that I understand that the background is an ouranekki board, it makes it even more intriguing - i.e. the great "game" that is going on there. p1 - The art strikes me again. Amazing. And I hadn't seen the link before that David has posted, explaining how this one (the full version, with the heroquesters, as we'll get to later in the book) was created. Fab. p2-4 - Reminds me that I missed the Kickstarter for the Guide, because at the time that was going on, I hadn't yet got back into Glorantha again (after originally encountering it and enjoying it in the RQ2/3 days). Luckily I did manage to snaffle a hard copy of the Guide left over from the KS, once I re-discovered Glorantha. Again, loving the art on p4 - I like the animation in this scene, how almost everyone is moving. Looks like the pig is about to wreak havoc! Wonderful. p6 - Greg's foreword. Reminds me again how much we have to thank Greg for, how much came from one man's mind (and then was built on by others, as he says). A great write-up. Also good to see him telling the story about how it was a friend of his who bought the first copy of D&D. I'm sure I've seen this story reported elsewhere as Greg himself buying it. Nice to see how far we've come with the Guide when compared to that Glorantha: Genertela boxed set. p7 - the map. I love maps. This one doesn't do so much for me as a lot of the other maps, being at such a high level. But of course it needs to be high level to show the whole world. Still good, and for me most places outside of Dragon Pass are unfamiliar to me, but I'm slowly starting to be able to place areas such as Slon as Jrustela. I still get Fronela and Fonrit mixed up though! I really need to keep a map close by when going through the Guide. p8 - intro. Now we start getting into references that (for me, at least) could lead to a *lot* of cross-referencing to later in the book to learn more. But a bit like when I first read The Silmarillion, I find it's best to take a deep breath and plough on, and not try to understand every reference right now, knowing that later on I'll learn a lot more. Don't want to get bogged down in the first few pages! p10 - OMG! I could spend hours looking at this picture of the world. So many little details here and there, and already I've learned from the discussion on this about Theya and Rausa (mentioned by @jajagappa in the error thread). Really, I could spend hours looking at this. Wish I had an even bigger version to look at. Who is the artistic force behind this one, @David Scott? I too was wondering about those branched-off bits on the SW and E and their depth, as already raised earlier in the thread (not saying it's wrong, just intrigued and got me thinking). Did I mention that I love this art? Drool ... p11 - The note in the first column about the lack of our modern (taken for granted, in many cases) freedoms stands out for me here. A nice reminder about how far removed Glorantha (and any other Bronze Age-ish society) is from modern life. Good points that I hadn't thought about specifically before, and a good reminder to point this out to players who have their PCs think in modern ways. Lots to think about here. p12 - Nice to see pictures of coins and not just text. Love the variation here, e.g. the contrast between the very clean Kralorelan coin, then the rougher Sartarite ones (makes me think of British Iron Age coinage) and then of course the Troll Blog! p13 - Amusing reference in the first column to "more horizontal forms of refreshment". Despite the vast gulf in a lot of areas between "ancient" societies and modern ones, some things never change! I really like the description of the market that starts at the end of the first column, but I feel it's a shame that we don't have some art to illustrate this. But of course the description goes wider here than any art could depict, and does help to get the imagination going to try and picture the scene. p14/15 - The art grabs me again. It does make me notice, though how all the Harrek art so far doesn't seem to match the description in the sidebar (p14) of the bear skin's lower jaw being below his neck and Harrek looking out through the jaws. It's a great description but seems noticeably absent in the art. I guess the artists want to show his face better. Or am I misunderstanding something? p16 - I like the section justifying adventurers and Glorantha, and helping define what they are exactly Again, good info for a GM here, to help explain to players why they are "here" and what they are doing, especially if the players have come from a more dungeon-crawling/looting background. Helps the world make sense. On Bones of the Gods, I have a mental block about bronze being able to be made from alloying bronze and tin too, as mentioned by someone else (I think in the error thread?) - possibly because the possibility isn't mention here (though of course it isn't excluded either). p17 - Interesting to see the term Wareran used here. This is the first time that I can recall coming across it. Maybe I've missed it, it seems to hardly be used elsewhere when talking about humans in Glorantha, as opposed to the other terms of Agimori/Veldang/Vithelan. Even though I read this section recently, before re-reading it for this forum group read, I still found it interesting to go back and make notes for this discussion.

The PDF misses some useful information from the dustcover - specifically the description of who the characters are on the cover, and the fact that the background is an ouranekki board. Someone who buys just the PDF would never know that this information is available. Perhaps in a future update to the PDF this bit from the inside of the front jacket could be combined with the bios from the back flap - an extra page?

Yeah, I think this is going to get confusing. There have been two versions of the PDF as far as I'm aware. My orginal one has a modified date (when I check the file properties in Windows) of 22 August 2015 and my latest one a modified date of 1st March 2016. But the text in the PDF (e.g. imprints page) doesn't have anything that I'm aware of that shows the difference. I bought my hard copy from Moon Design too, not via the KS, though of course it's a KS hard copy.

http://www.princeofsartar.com/comic/95-sor-eel-the-short/

So we can discuss the RQG QS rules, ask questions and point out errata in this forum, which might duplicate a whole load of effort that's already gone on in the Cult of Chaos forum. Doesn't make sense to me. Why don't we have all the non-scenario-specific discussion here, out in the open? What am I missing?

Am I understanding this correctly? So rules errata stuff is in the password-protected Cult of Chaos forum (so a lot of people here won't see that), but rules discussions take place here? Surely lots of duplication?

https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/17/17169.phtml