Jeff

As an aside, this is why I would like people to only post Actual Questions That Come Up In Game and Can't Be Resolved With A Modicum of Common Sense to the RQ Questions thread.

And now why is it surprising that Lanko(r)mi has sorcery?

Yes. That point, although obvious, is worth repeating.

I'd suggest reading the first section of page 23.

As I sit in my office cluttered with notes, sketches, and fragments of stories that I am trying to arrange, edit, and complete so that they can be published, I happily acknowledge that Greg Stafford has influenced by professional and personal life more than anyone else. Greg was my mentor, my teacher, and such a profound influence on me that I can't even imagine how to delineate where Greg ends and I begin. Greg introduced me to my wife (even gave us the key to a castle eyrie before we knew we'd need it); he was my business partner, writing partner, and friend. Greg entrusted me with his world - a world made up of fragments of his dreams, fantasies, nightmares, anxieties, hopes, and fears. With just 24 magical symbols (two fewer than the Latin script, two more than the Major Arcana), Greg assembled an entire cosmos, large enough to contain multitudes. Greg's cosmos was deeply personal but also reflected universal human themes. Themes that embraced both our best and our worst aspects - hope and hubris, humanity's desire for unity combined with our drive for division and destruction, the need for each new generation to overthrow the last. The cycle of birth, new hopes, old fears, death, and rebirth. Greg did the monomyth better than Campbell, the Matter of Britain better than Mallory. Greg's mythology is both new and as familiar as half-forgotten dream. Greg Stafford is now part of the God Time. The God Time, for those unfamiliar with Greg's mythology, is that part of the cosmos that is endless and eternal. In the mundane world we are ephemeral - we all will die and disappear from the earth; but in the God Time we endure as part of the fundament of the cosmos. So although Greg the Mortal is no longer with us in Time, Greg the Immortal exists eternally, because Greg helped make our universe. Maybe that is all just a metaphor for Greg's boundless creativity. Greg's works, his love, his thoughts, his dreams - they continue to inspire. Not just the stuff he's rightly celebrated for - Glorantha, RuneQuest, Pendragon, Nephilim, a lifetime of game design, and so much more - but all of it. Greg's thoughts on shamanism and the invisible world, discussions pre-Clovis habitation in North America, interpretation of Huichol art, thoughts on life and love, and so much more. All of that is still with us - part of the God Time. Greg once told me shamans and heroes exist simultaneously in our ephemeral world of Time and in the immortal God Time. Like so many of the things Greg has told me over the years, even when I have been able intellectually grasp the concept, it takes experiences to truly understand it. In this case, it takes Greg's passing for me to truly understand the difference between Time and God Time. Greg's mortal self - that part of him confined by Time - is gone, but his immortal self is with us always in the God Time.

Or just submit all generated characters to the GM for approval! I like a randomised element - even when I have a good idea what I want to play as a character, there are some characteristics that I don't initially care about and so I roll the dice to randomly generate something. So with that magician - I know I want the character to have a good INT, CHA, and POW. I roll the dice - 15 for SIZ (re-rolled a "1"), 16 for SIZ, 14 for DEX, and 12 for CON. Great - now I am ready to go. I ask my GM if that is fine, she says sure, and away we go.

I personally have a rabid hatred of point-buy characteristics or D&D arrays. My personal house rule is if the player "knows" the character, let them just tell me the characteristics that fit that character ("I wanna play a really strong, tough warrior that isn't too smart - can I have STR 17, CON 16, INT 12?" "Sure!" or "I want to play a character raised by a temple to deal with the gods. Can I have INT 16, POW 17, CHA 17 - but I'll roll for the other stats?" "SURE!") Or create a gigantic dice pool (getting rid of all 1s) and letting the player allocate those the way they want. In short, my house rule is let the players play what they want. I know Jason and I have alternative methods in the GM Sourcebook (they were originally in the Core Rules but got cut), but for me, point-buy and array methods kill the magic. Unless you are making dwarfs. Then it should be mandatory! Jeff

Which is normally how the skirmish ends up (actually it is how most skirmishes SHOULD end up). This creates an open-ended dilemma for the players. Do they pursue the fleeing Tusk Riders to Pig Hollow, only to flee in turn if Redeye shows up? Does that mean that they emotionally feel they must remain in Apple Lane to protect the hamlet against future reprisals? Do they try to persuade the queen to hunt Red-Eye? Do they stalk the Tusk Riders and wait for them to leave the Hollow and then attack them? This may take seasons to resolve, while meanwhile the adventurers get wound up in other problems, like the Varmandi feud with the Orlevings and so on. But a partially resolved problem is a great tool for the GM - anytime you want you can turn that partial resolved problem into a new problem.

Game mechanics are always going to be more cut and dried than how things are presented in stories. But Greg and I have long presented adulthood initiation and cult initiation as different stages in a process. So among the Orlanthi, somewhere around 13 to 15 years old, children are initiated into adulthood. Then normally begins a several year process of being chosen by a god and initiated in its cult secrets. RuneQuest handles this in reverse - since you start by adult initiates of a cult. You work out what god chose you, then you have a group of associated deities whose secrets you are at least partial privy to. And then you can choose to be lay members of other local cults (although this step isn't mentioned in char gen since it doesn't come up in many if not most campaigns, is very locally dependent, etc.). Voila! Our adventurer is now as described above but seen from the perspective of a 21 year old who has already been initiated into the mysteries (and indeed is a fully engaged initiate of a specific cult on their way towards Rune Mastery), instead that of a teenager looking towards that point.

Heck, if there was a trollkin with a negative damage modifier using a club, I'd do the double negative special damage because it adds to the pathos.

YGWV, but not in ours. Thanks to the diligent work of Claudia Loroff working out recipes from across the lozenge, we have discovered that Genertela does not have the potato.

Just because a given real world culture had or didn't have a weapon doesn't necessary mean that there is a Gloranthan correspondence. There is not a common equivalent of the "bastard sword" in central Genertela in the Third Age.

Part of the confusion comes from the fact that this is not nearly as a cut-and-dried as game mechanics (necessarily) make it. So we have adulthood initiation rites. Let's call that initiation into adulthood. Nearly every adult is initiated according to whatever cultural rites are used to do that. So in Dragon Pass, we see Orlanth and Ernalda. In Prax we see Waha and Eiritha. In Peloria we see Lodril and the Grain Goddess. In a few places, you even see the Seven Mothers. And so on. A few people fall outside of that, but they are the exceptions that prove the rule. Then you have initiation into a specific cult. Our new adult Orlanthi might get chosen by Issaries, our new adult Ernaldan might get chosen by Maran Gor, and so on. The Orlanthi tend to do this in a two or three year transition from childhood to adulthood. Other cultures might do it differently. In most cases, people are lay members, but player characters are almost always full initiates. Does that help?

It may come as a shock to you all, but the Teelo Norri Poor Fund provides MAIZE BREAD not potato bread as originally stated. Maybe in the first few wanes it was some weird dark bread, but since glorious Hon-eel joined us, it has been MAIZE.

The closest thing to a pole arm is the dagger-axe, which was a Chinese Bronze Age weapon: The Bronze Age rapier was a long thrusting sword - the Gloranthan version is a bit longer than those commonly found in Bronze Age Europe, but the same basic idea: Anyways that's what we included.

Page 389 is within the context of the Malkioni culture. Needless to say the Malkioni will make a much greater use of sorcery than say Lhankor Mhy. Jeff

Actually there are plenty of examples of what are described as a light mace in the rules - "a haft with a round or carved stone weight at one end suitable for bashing and crushing."

If you want a centaur PC, or someone from the Lunar Heartlands, or a sorcerer from Loskalm, or the like - then you and your GM are going to have to use a minimum of your own creativity and make it possible. You've got the tools here, but you are going to need to do some assembly on your own. There's certainly enough there between the core rules and the Bestiary that a GM and player that are willing to do some creative interpretation work can certainly get there. If you really want to play something like a centaur, then take the core rules, take the Bestiary and make them your own. Jeff

A spear is a weakling's weapon, meant for trollkin and humans. But a mace? Now that is a weapon worthy of my 2D6 damage bonus. And you should see Rock the Great Troll go!

You clearly don't have any dark troll player characters. They LOVE the new Crush rules.

You can certainly use a club even if you have no damage bonus. But what it means is that without a damage bonus, a club doesn't get a damage specific benefit from a special success as opposed to a normal success (although you still get all the basic benefits of a special success).

That is in fact what I hope LM sorcerers will do!

If you are a great troll or a giant, crushing damage gets far better than impale or slash. If you are really strong, use a crushing weapon.

I agree completely! Asking questions (like about sorcery or second sight or fire blade) let's us think about whether rules are really in conflict or need clarification. It is constructive and helpful feedback and we try to act on it - either in the form of replies, Rune Fixes, or in new expanded material. Saying "there are so many errors and contradictions that I can't handle the text" isn't constructive feedback (especially that is not true by any reasonable standard). In fact, I'd say it is exactly the opposite. Jeff

Second Sight and Soul Sight These spells allows the recipient to see POW of living things, including incorporeal spirits nearby that have not yet manifested in the material world. These spells do not permit the viewer to peer into the Spirit or Divine Worlds and see their magical geography behind, beneath, beyond, within our world. The exact function of these spells can be described in many ways. One common way is to treat the spells as creating a strange ultra-violet torch that shows off invisible spirits near this world. These spirits can appear in strange places, corners, immediately in front of the viewer, etc., and can be beautiful, ghastly, terrifying, etc. Cast Second Sight or Soul Sight within a temple, and the viewer may be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of spirits swarming about.