jajagappa

I don't think in the same way. The earth goddess triads, very much including Voria, are very prominent in the Earth pantheon mythos. But Voriof does not have an important place in the Earth pantheon: he is more the young shepherd.

It was rare that I ran spirit combat in RQ3 - as @styopa noted because it was MP vs. MP, as soon as you began to lose MP, there was this rapid downward spiral that was almost impossible to recover from. And there wasn't really an effective way to avoid the attack in the first place. Now there is the Distraction spell, so there's opportunity for the PC with the best Spirit Combat to pull a spirit away from someone with low Spirit Combat.

Asrelia is already in the list.

In RQG, the biggest factors are Spirit Combat and Spirit Combat Damage. Even a low powered spirit can have a high Spirit Combat. Most likely only a PC with assistant shaman or priest as background will have much beyond 30-40% in the way of Spirit Combat %. As Spirit Combat is an Opposed Roll, a spirit with a Spirit Combat of 50% will generally have a good edge, and if it is up at 75%+, will have a high likelihood of defeating the PC. Spirit Block or Spirit Screen are critical for spirit combat, helping to reduce the possible MP loss as long as possible. If you're not a shaman and are encountering spirits, you want to spend your RP's and get Spirit Block cast as quick as possible. This will slow MP loss, allowing your PC to make more attacks longer, and a PC with good CHA+POW can likely score more Spirit Combat Damage providing some chance of success.

I believe Esrolia noted for its red wines. Kosh and Thelos both cited for wine in the Guide.

Cider was the pre-eminent drink in my old Imther campaign, with a lot of orchards in the lands south of the Imther Mountains.

To address the "hoard" or not spend vs. spending HP's, I always provide experience for all players. If you don't spend HP's, you can use however. If you do spend, you get to choose adding points between either: 1) what you spent HP's on; 2) where you achieved Complete Victory; 3) where you had a critical and achieved a Major Victory; or 4) some really good roleplaying event. If you spent 1 or 2 HP's, then it's something of a mix. That said, I still get imbalance where I have heroes with masteries on specific abilities (picking up that bonus) and augmented by other abilities with mastery level (getting +5/+6 bonus), so even a very high difficulty is pretty even (but out of the question for those who are using base keywords). For combat, I use one of the following techniques: 1) a very high difficulty opponent facing the high-level hero with lower minions facing others; 2) multiple foes attacking the high-level hero and forcing the multiple foe penalty (which could include an allied spirit of the main foe); 3) some tactic that prevents the high-level hero from leveraging their advantage and forcing use of a lower-level ability. For non-combat, I try to vary events and needs so that everyone can draw on their strengths (and sometimes that forces the high-level hero to use other abilities that are quite low). Also take advantage of flaws. In some non-combat situations, you could "flip" the situation so that the high-level abilities have to become Assists (e.g. in a social situation, the "combat" ability becomes a means of Intimidation to help the merchant or noble bargaining with the clan chief). You could also do a variation of the Group Simple contest, where instead of a common difficulty, the obstacles are of differing difficulties that cater to the skills of each.

There are some good examples for the Game of Thrones on the web. Also The Coming Storm includes a number of relationship maps to highlight different groups and factions.

The Mundane World battle, no; but when the battle opened into the Gods War, then yes as the curse effectively occurs in mythic time (as if it has always been that way).

The Mistress Race trolls will know the truth, but after a 1000+ years from the event, I think most others would conflate the two.

Not one I've heard of. However, while there is nothing to indicate the return of a Blue Moon, we do know about the rise of the little White Moon, aka the White Orbiter. Perhaps this is who our baby giant grows up to be?

The Sun Stopped in the Sky. This was against all that the gods had ordained. Black Eater the Night arose from the ground, from all the shadows, to devour the Sun. But the Sun pierced Black Eater, drove the shadows back and sheared off their size and form, cursing the whole race of Darkness. Thus were trolls cursed and trollkin born.

Certainly not noted in the canonical sources.

Goddess of Suffering and Sorrow. From the Guide p.678: She is banished to the Underworld but escapes to plague us anyway. and p.679: The Lunars revere Gerra as one of the seven ancient Moon goddesses. She was once a great and powerful goddess, but through her own haughtiness brought terrible punishments upon herself. She insisted upon unspeakable things, and so was reproved with increasingly severe methods until she was subdued. She has several holy places in Old Carmania. They are all gruesome, sacrificial pyramids where initiates mutilate themselves. Certainly the small ones (and the question is what the origin of the small ones is?). As for the great ones like Gonn Orta, well possibly associated with Earth/Genert, but they seem to have Underworld associations too.

Not correct - he appears in both GRoY and the Guide, so he is fully canonical. 🙂 GRoY notes (p.9) Veskerele. God of the Second Hell. Shown on Gods Wall IV-6. In reference to the latter, he is among the deities of the 4th Row, the deities of Below: (p.62) Veskerele. The faceless God of Second Hell. The latter repeats in the Guide (p.678) IV-6. Veskerele. The faceless God of the Second Underworld and Keeper of the Second Hell. He dwells in: Veskerelgat. The God Caves. These are the places that can be reached only by heroes, holy men, madmen, and fools. The lesser deities of the Earth live here.

Yes. The Glorantha Sourcebook contains the myths of the pantheons of the Gods (including the Lunar), as well as the complete History of the Lunar Empire, and more. It's a good grounding from a cultural perspective. The Guide is effectively the gazetteer for all of Glorantha, plus good summaries of the competing cultures and the Elder Races, plus some broad summaries of the ages of the world and hints at the upcoming Hero Wars.

aka Deshkorgos, Keeper of the Fourth Hell, but in some guises Lodril as Keeper of the Third Hell.

The HQ1 era supplements created lots of weird gods that, I believe, really didn't capture the Lunar way and have gone to the list of non-canonical sources. The best source for the Lunar gods currently is in the Glorantha Sourcebook. And most of those are a veneer or supplement on top of the existing local cultures which are dominated by the Pelorian Earth religion (including Lodril), the Weeder folk of Darjiin and along the Oslir, etc.

Lodril - he revels in wantonness, drink, etc. The river gods - they are always mercurial. Others noted Orlanth and Veskerele. Ravenveg the Carrot God, who's likely just an incarnation of Eurmal.

Probably in my Glorantha, Tatius would assign the Coders to take the Magics of the Cradle at all costs. Giants are a race of Disorder and possibly Darkness - the antithesis of Tatius' solar magics. Her fate is immaterial to Tatius. But the Red Goddess might well whisper words in Anderida's dreams to have her protect the baby, or offer her to Gerra - after all, the Moon is the balance of Light and Dark. What Tatius takes to power the Light of the Reaching Moon must be balanced by the Dark of the Dying Moon.

Nothing posted yet on price, but see Rick's note near bottom in this thread for rest of details: https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/9043-when-should-the-bestiary-be-in-print/

RQ2 has a Defense, which RQ3/RQG dropped. If you look in the back of the RQG book there is also a conversion list from RQ2/RQ3 to RQG which identifies spells that have been dropped or renamed. Most tactics/tips should carry forward (there's not been that much change in either spirit or Rune magic spells). The RQG Rune Point mechanic lets most PC's use both the "good" and the common Rune magic from their deity rather than having to explicitly make sure you had sacrificed for Shield and Spirit Block and Multispell to the detriment of the cool stuff.\ The Rune and Passion Inspiration mechanism is new/different and if successful potentially provides a bonus through a whole battle. Of course, your opponents may get those too which goes to @Dissolv's points on level of capability of foes. Use terrain to either avoid or attack them (i.e. get height, hide from them, etc). Or make it difficult for them to harm you. They can only cast so many Speedarts or Multimissiles, so cast Shield (in combo with natural armor) to counter (and outlast) their magic. Shield is good because you can add Protection or Shimmer to it. Cast Lightwall in front while charging so you can see them but they can't easily see you. Use Fanaticism or Berserk once you're in the middle of them because they likely have few/no weapons to parry with and you want to maximize attacks. Or if you're inspired, that may also put you over 100% so you can split attacks. Another option if you're Orlanthi is to use the wind. Cast your Increase Wind and Wind Warp spells so that the arrows don't reach you, or Rain so that their bows become wet and useless.

I had the pleasure of having Phil as one of the players in my long-running HQG game. His character Beorht Shortspear (nickname from the heirloom weapon that came from his great-grandmother Vingan warrior) was one of my favorites, and the spear proved its worth when he used it to summon lightning when fighting a demon in the Otherworld (if I remember right, he scored a Complete Victory on that roll). Later became an initiate of Geo's at the Jonstown Inn.

When I ran face-to-face games years ago, we used miniatures - they were useful in combat situations. They were generally unpainted. For current play-by-post games, where needed I create maps and then mark positions.

Not extensively, only when augments bring over 100%. But no problem with it (or the subtraction) so far.