jajagappa

The skeleton of a large coastal bird from the Three Step Isles, now thought to be extinct.

The skull of a monstrous broo, probably taken as a trophy after careful purification and cleansing rituals.

An Orlanthi ceremonial mask of an unknown deity.

Another carved plank, this of a sea monster devouring a ship's crew.

A carved plank, perhaps from a Holy Country ship taken in the aftermath of one of Harrek's raids.

More of the decorative saddle from Teshnos. Believed to be of a rubble runner. Note: it might also be a rare long-tailed morocanth or a morocanth heroquester with it's companion rubble runner.

Part of a decorative saddle presumed from Teshnos given the lush vegetation.

A carved wooden panel, perhaps of a dragon, from a Dragon Pass chieftain's hall.

A sea serpent devours (or perhaps vomits up) some poor soul.

Some treasures from an Yggs Isle horde, found on the isle known to locals as the Iceland. Here in this tapestry fragment a gigantic creature of chaos devours the limb of a god.

Obviously the former are what the Etyries merchants calibrate their scales to while the latter are what your average adventuring party receives - well clipped by cunning clan chiefs.

Which older sources? It's hard to comment across 20+ years of possible references. I know some older material came from a specific GM's campaign (Martin Laurie's maybe?) and certain references from that (e.g. Gudnystead, Gwandor clan) have been renamed/replaced. As the most canonical/recent, I'd just go with what is in Coming Storm re: Cinsina/Culbrea/Dinacoli/Torkani/Maboder. It seems most complete on these. Similarly for Colymar/Lismelder/Malani, I'd go with SKoH, Sartar Companion, and RQG. Personally, I'd prefer to keep these as the 'documented' tribes/clans, and let GM's figure out the rest as need/interest arises.

Love, love, love the giant duck head! That will definitely make it into one of my games. 😀

I'd just do a shaman-led ritual within a protective circle where the PC's consume some substance (hazia, black elf dust, etc.) that allows Discorporation. The PC's bodies are vulnerable of course since they have no fetch. Once discorporate, they are led by the shaman to whatever the common starting point is. The shaman leads the Spirit Travel, but the PC's must be able to use their Spirit Combat. I've allowed them to carry certain spirit world related objects into the Spirit Plane to help (e.g. Sword Grass transforms into 'swords' in the Spirit World that can inflict spirit combat damage).

I'm not sure if it was originally done or not to calculate the math stats, but I've found there are some odd effects at the points where you cross mastery boundaries (e.g. High Resistance goes from 20 to 1W). At 20, you either get critical, success, or fumble - there is no fail. When you move up to 1W, you get critical, fail bumped to success (if PC has no mastery) or simply fail, and fumble. I've ended up creating an intermediary level of Quite High Resistance (starting at 6W) to get a better level of interaction/opposition (particularly where PC's are likely to get a specific ability bonus + augment). Over the course of play I generally agree that there feels like there is something missing in both the levels for High Resistance, etc. as well as the effects of advancement. Interesting thought. May be more interesting than the +1. I could almost see it depending on the Level of Victory effectively achieved by the PC's in the season's climax. I still like the approach that if you don't use it, then it can be applied to experience (and will certainly keep that in my game). But they never carryover into the new session/season. I like this. I may explore this when I get to my next 'season'. Interesting thought. Do you carry over the 'defeat' but gain a Hero Point? Or risk a subsequent defeat because you haven't bumped up your Hero Points? It makes me think that this is a way for PC's to drive a Pass/Fail cycle in the game.

I think this makes the most sense for trolls, elves, and dwarves - all have much different perspectives than short-lived, violent humans.

No specific rune spells are assumed. Vasana is likely to find Lightning or Shield the most useful. For Yanioth, it would be Summon Earth Elemental, Inviolable, maybe Charisma. I don't recall Sorola or Harmast using Special Rune Spells. Spirit Block and Heal Wound IIRC were the most important and both are common.

Between the time of the Quickstart and the Core book release, the availability of special rune spells was changed. Originally it was going to be that you just acquired Rune Points and could use for any available Common or Special Rune spells. I'm not sure what the designers specific reasons were for the change, but it did resolve three issues: overpowered young initiates who could cast any available spell; the ability to distinguish special rune spells only available to higher level status members; and the ability to have PC's quest to find temples with more unusual spells. I ran the Quickstart with the original usage. It was fine. When I moved on to a full campaign with the updated rules, I just had my players adjust down to a number of available special rune spells equal to their rune points. Possible some players wouldn't like making that adjustment, but no issues in my group.

I really like this idea of the shaman creating his personal spirit world map! The nice thing with this is that each shaman can have a map that is somewhat distinct and different, yet there is also an overlapping consistency. Shamanic quests always seemed like good candidates for SoloQuests. However, one of the things I like with the new RQG rules is that it should be feasible to run journeys onto the Spirit Plane with ordinary non-shamanic characters guided by a shaman. I ran a quest like that in my HQG Orlmarth campaign and it was a lot of fun (and weirdly different).

Let me know how it went, or if you think anything needs tweaking/additions/mods.

I could readily see challenging and defeating other Tusk Rider leaders as a means to increasing their CHA. You'd probably have to defeat 12+ others, but by that point you've likely got a solid following.

There's likely a rough transition from where the cult leaders are shaman-priests who interact directly with the spirit and the spirit gifts followers with spirit magic, to those where the initiate can 'act like'/'emulate' the spirit's deeper powers (i.e. gain/invoke rune magic). The more worshippers the spirit has, the more likely it can grant god-like powers. But even then, not all do, or some may provide both types of interactions.

It's not about willpower, it's about leadership and presence of the individual. That's what CHA represents. CHA is actually the easiest now to increase. As noted on RQG p.420 . . Possession of good, showy, magical objects raises CHA by +1. Just 1 point is gained here. It does not matter if the adventurer has one or a hundred showy items. . . Becoming a God-talker, Rune Master, or shaman in the course of play or between adventures increases an adventurer’s CHA by +1. . . Successful leadership of a military expedition (such as a raid) or of a community in a crisis can increase an adventurer’s CHA by +1. . . Unsuccessful leadership can cause the adventurer to lose CHA. Disastrous leadership can force the leader to make a CHA×1 roll or lose –1D3 points of CHA.

We know that Dragon's Teeth can be used to raise an entire regiment (i.e. the Dragontooth Runners), so it would not be surprising if something could be done with the tooth of a dragonewt (think of it as a practice experiment). Of course that may create other unfortunate entanglements in the mundane world!

That would be my choice as well - after all, there's some reason why this Tusk Rider is destined for fame in the Hero Wars!