Nevun

While it's not implicitly mentioned on the spell description, I'd probably allow the Humakti spell of Sever Spirit to sever the link between the shaman and their fetch. It's in line with the meaning behind the spell. That said - I'd probably rule that the spirit was 'lost' - not destroyed. And should lead on to a suitably memorable quest to find the lost fetch and bring it home again.

One change we made to our RQ3 combat was to make combat rolls effectively opposed rolls. A successful hit vs a successful parry resulted in no result - no need to roll location or damage, move on the the next person. Effectively results were: fumble=-1, fail=0, success=1, special=2, crit=3. Subtract defensive level of success from offensive level and work out the result. eg. Subtract successful parry (1) from a critical attack (3) results in 2 or a special attack result. OR (flip a coin) a successful attack + a fumbled parry. We lost some combat realism in return for a substantial increase in game speed. It ignored the possibility of really heavy blows blasting through defenses despite successful parries etc. I think we came up with other rules to cover the edge cases but it resulted in a major uptick in the speed of games. Prior to implementing that, a single fight could consume most of a game session.

Thinking about the Atlatl, it's not something I'd make generally available to my players. The ability to make your spears go further and hit harder sounds dead on like a cult secret - something that is taught in a heroquest and only available to that one specific sub-cult or clan. Or learned from Dragonnewts.

Good call. Categorisation of things into Animist, Theist & Sorceristic is a very God Learnerish way of looking at it ("not that there's anything wrong with that"). But to put it another way. animists recognise that all creatures not of this world are spirits. Some small, some big and some world-shatteringly huge. But they're all spirits and can be approached (with caution) and bargained with. Theists recognise that Spirits and Gods are two entirely separate things and only occasionally mix. Sorcerers recognise that all things are symbols of the background world processes and can be manipulated with skill and study. And all are entirely correct.

I'd envisage a simple exchange. Go to the shaman and get cured. That's his duty as a member of the clan. He may ask a favour in return which, as a matter of politness, you should agree to. Maybe place a totem in a cave (infested?). Stand guard over his body for a night. Watch his back while he picks some sacred herbs. Etc. lots of RP opportunities there. Nothing major - just little plot hooks and character development. Get to know the shaman's personality and build a relationship.

I'm trying to work in ways to include Shamans in the daily lives of more civilised tribes. I'm thinking of running them something similar to the Witches of the Discworld - someone you go to to deal with the little problems that crop up in daily lives. Ones that don't warrant the big hammer of god powers. Got the sniffles - go to the shaman to get the (very) minor disease spirits moved on. Lost a family necklace somewhere - go ask the shaman to set a spirit looking for it. Milk starting to curdle - ask the shaman what you may have done to displease the hearth guardian. Need help digging a well - ask the shaman to press a gnome into your service for a day. Can't remember where dear departed dad said he saw that excellent grove of bow wood - ask the shaman to chat with him. i don't think it warrants a big process. Skills checks etc. Maybe just a roleplaying opportunity and a minor sacrifice or gift. They're also useful for the BIG spiritual issues. Possession, Strong disease spirits, Assistance form powerful elements etc.

I see Shamans and their relationship to the civilized heirarchy of spiritual engagement, as analogous to hunters and their relationship to the defense and martial arrangement of a civilization. They both work on the fringes. Dealing with the rough and unstructured elements that are not typically part of a civilized society. But still very important for their skills and their presence on the outer limits of society.

I've always thought of an alchemy skill as being a similar system to rune magic. You start with a few basic alchemy skills - Gather, Brew, Preserve. And a few related skills: Trade, lore etc. Modified by how much of a prepared (sanctified) place you have. Learning the basics gives you access to a suite of basic potion recipes (like Common rune spells): Simple healing potions. Low level woads, tinctures to improve the quality of certain goods, Powers of a similar level to spirit magic or common rune magic. Being taught by a specific school gives you access to more complex and specific recipes (like cult rune spells). Powerful healing elixirs. Combat boosting drugs. Base draughts required for certain heroquests or spirit world visits. Shapechanging totems. Then you can research (heroquest) for unique recipes known only to few individuals or just you. I'm not sure how you would place a limit on the number of recipes created per season - in a way that would be analogous to rune points. Any ideas?

I don't know if it exists at all but it has occurred to me in the past that smiths should have a heat/fire immunity and form the heated metal with their hands like clay. That said, there's something primal and warlike about subduing earth by beating it with a club and fire.

Heya. All variable Spirit magic spells can be cast at any level up to what you have learned. So if you know Heal 3, you can cast Heal 1, Heal 2 or Heal 3 - costing 1MP, 2MP or 3MP respectively. The page 256 reference to boosting spells is purely for the purpose of breaking through countermagic or other resistances.

That's probably the only complaint I have too. The artwork is superb. The Pregen characters will be very useful. But I can't see the books lasting anything like some of the original 2nd ed books.

Ages back - in a RQ3 campaign. Very early on in my characters career - the very first fight in fact, I lost my shield. By the time I could get it replaced I had somehow managed to get really good at parrying with my arm and by sheer luck, had kept it attached. So building on the flavour of that, I opted for an armouring enchantment on that arm. Several over time in fact. Learning how to improve my skills at enchanting to build on the original enchantment, became a focus for character development. That plus some GOOD heavy armour on that one arm, made for an interesting character. Parrying with the arm was in fact the first skill that character mastered.

Doesn't really roll off the tongue does it.

You can always rule that in your players history, one of his ancestors was a hero cult that teaches that one rune-spell Become 'other'. Player is initiated into Orthanth (or whatever) AND has membership in the associated Orlanthi hero cult Moon Moon Wolf Brother or whatever.

That was my thought too. Loot from battle is probably in the form of arms and armour anyway,

Comparing this to other magic systems within RQ. On one hand you have Spirit & Rune magic. One skill to use the ability but multiple items (spells) that need to be learned. The analogy would by you have 1 skill - Alchemy (45%) and you know multiple recipes - Blade venom, sleeping draught, fire oil, explosive bomb etc. On another, you have sorcery where each spell has it own skill plus there are other skills to manipulate them. The analogy would be you have the following skills Blade venom (29%), Injested poison (52%), Sleeping draught (45%), Healing potion (61%), Fire oil (22%) plus Preservation (38%), Potency (44%) etc. Personally I'd aim for inbetween. Group the products into categories. Poisons, Explosives, Healing, Industrial etc. Each with their own skill. And have individual recipies learned inside each category. Then add a few skills to manipulate them.

Not to hijack this discussion but since it's about the pre-gen characters... The scribe character - Sorala, has some fairly heavy armour for a scribe. Both the quickstart and RQG list her as having "Armor and Helmet". 6pt head and 3pts everywhere else. Where in the character creation process would she get that? Her backstory tells of her fighting in the wars but her listed profession is scribe.

One of the nice things about KoDP is that the heroquests are broken down into nice 'chunks' that easily translate into RQ Heroquest stages and can be used in your games.

That's precisely the reason I started the reddit thread. There's things we (as round world dwellers) assume that just aren't correct for Glorantha. We make assumptions that our characters probably wouldn't. For instance, if I described water flowing up and over a hill to continue downstream, my players would assume something out of the ordinary was happening and spend ages investigating. Their characters would probably have shrugged and said "I has always been this way". I'd like to know more of these instances myself.

That is a perfect example of what I was asking about. If you're ok with it, I'll grab that for my own use later on.

I found the thread I referred to. A Reddit post. A few highlights: The tides (tied to the Blue Moon) creep in slowly about twice a week but ebb dramatically fast. (Tidal waves exist, they are closer to small tsunamis.) Tides are stronger wherever one is closer to the constellation "River" in the sky. There are no months, the Red Moon phases over a weekly cycle. (The Blue Moon isn't visible for long enough to discern whether it phases, it climbs the sky outside of the Sky Dome.) Rivers and at times even seas don't necessarily stay flat in their banks, but may resemble a jellyfish tendril of flowing and eddying water. The Syphon River in Heortland which flows uphill is such a river for most of its length. Ernalda/Ularia is Love, and wants to keep things close - Hence, Gravity. There's also the Syphon River in Heortland, which flows uphill because it ignored it's father, Magasta's call to leap into the void left by the destruction of the spike at the center of the world. Tidal waves and such are spirits of the sea. Diseases are not caused by infection, but by curses and evil spirits. (Personally I also like the idea that disease spirits are attracted to dead bodies and open wounds). Bronze can be found in the ground and mined, as well as being made from tin and copper. Bronze is also strong enough to make a usable sword much longer than terrestrial bronze can. Iron can only be made by dwarves, though it can be worked by humans like the Third Eye Blue cult. Tin (air) and Copper (earth) can be alloyed to make Bronze because of the marriage between Orlanth and Ernalda.

I'm in a slightly different boat in that I know a LOT about Glorantha and what has and what is happening. But so much so that I lose perspective on what locals might - and more importantly, might NOT know. Drowning players in the details of Malkioni society or the mysteries of Nysalor are just not really appropriate. I'm thinking about world shattering events that may be obvious to all the characters but that we forget about. The Re-opening of the seas. Dragonrise. The rise of Harrak and the Wolf pirates. Native Gloranthan oddities too. Things we (as round world inhabitents) wouldn't ordinarily think about. Like the way water flows - uphill even, as long as it's going toward the sea. The movement of celestial bodies (I'm looking at you red moon) and the bodies that inhabit it. There are others. I think I started a thread about it a while back..

While I have Heroquest voices at home (I think I have almost about every RQ/Glor product available) I haven't referred to it in a while. I don't recall it referring to the great winter and resulting famine that would have recently occurred in characters timelines. Nor do I recall it referring to the Dragonrise. I might have just forgotten it though. I'm going to re-read it tonight. It may be that I just have to take that resource and add in some of the events from the Character Gen timeline. Characters should CERTAINLY know about those events. Some of the more important need to be highlighted.

I'm gearing up to start a new game with a few RQ/Glorantha neophytes. As players they know very little about the game world and i don't necessarily want to overwhelm them. That said there's some stuff they should know. I was wondering if there are any good outlines along the lines of "What the shaman told you..." Maybe it's right there in the books already and I missed it. Any suggestions? I was thinking about: In the fields of Geography, Recent events & History, Locally. What do characters know about the local area, recent events & history. Wider zone. Again - how much geography, current events and history should characters know about Dragon Pass and the nearby areas. Glorantha in general. Again - Geography and history - presumably in very general details. Probably not a lot of recent events. Most of the geographical details I can roll out assuming a good knowledge of the local area and getting increasingly more vague as you go out. But, outside of cult histories, how much cosmology and god-time history would an initiate know? but more importantly - how much do characters know about current and recent events? What military campaigns are currently being waged? What magical and mystical events have happened recently (dragonrise etc). I mean I (as GM) know these things happened and the characters probably do too. But is there a good written outline that I could hand to my players?

Consider too. That in the environment of Glorantha, 'natural' probably means magical. I mean it may start as a mundane fire but any large power source like a big fire - is going to attract naturally occurring magical entities. Just as disease spirits are attracted to dead bodies (or untreated wounds). I can imaging a big fire growing - getting larger. Then salamanders forming, to 'frolic' in the blaze. Spreading it. Feeding it. Certainly opposing any undines summoned to try to control it. They have short attention spans so left to their own devices, they'll eventually leave when the fun is over - when all the 'food' is gone. But bring undines into the fun and it could become a battle. Not to mention any special interest groups that may rock up to add their 2l to the event.