Oracle

1 hour ago, M Helsdon said:

The latter looks like a partial expansion of the former. If you were to consult the original Jonstown Compendium you'd probably find them all part of a single entry, split by the compiler of the manuscript.

There are quite a number of inconsistences and apparent errors in King of Sartar (all intentional). It's an unreliable in-world set of documents, and in some areas is potentially as suspect as reading the Iliad as an accurate historical account of the wars in western Anatolia in the Bronze Age.

1 hour ago, Yelm's Light said:

Exactly.  The book goes to some length about the conflicts between the different 'historical' documents, and the imperfection acknowledged by some of the scholars involved about the accuracy of the foundational documents that they used (not to mention the foibles of the individual scholars themselves).

All true. But so far I was under the impression (which may be wrong), that these inconsistencies existed between different documents, but not within a single document. Seeing the Jonstown Compendium as a single document, which compiles several information snippets, this double entry came a bit as a surprise.

So for me the question is still open, if this double entry is an (intentional) inconsistency, partial citations of a single entry from the Jonstown Compendium (as described by @M Helsdon) or just an editing issue.

In the latest version of King of Sartar the Jonstown Compendium entry #271,852 is listed twice, once on page 30, and a second time on page 32. (It's even listed that way in the table of contents).

The two entries have different contents, and so I would guess, they should have different numbers.

The second entry does not exist in the original version of King of Sartar from 1992.

So is this just a editing error, which was missed during the proofreading of the newer version? Or are both sections only excerpts from a single (larger) entry in the Jonstown Compendium?

On 24.10.2016 at 0:57 PM, David Scott said:

The references for Broo Biology and Reproduction are in River of Cradles page 54, the relevant line on page 55 being:

...

I'm a bit confused here. In my version of River of Cradles this bit of information can be found on pages 31 and 32. Are there different River of Cradles editions available?

What kind of scenario would you use?

An existing one or a new one?

Would you go for HeroQuest Glorantha or for a scenario using the HeroQuest Core Rules (and therefore a definition of the needed genre pack needs to be included into the QuickStart scenario description)?

Yes (at least according to the last IN THE WAKE OF THE KRAKEN newsletter ...)

extended the description of the Hero Point bump issue for Simple Contests on p. 63.

On p.55 of Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes an information box is displayed containing the entry No. 9,807 of the Jonstown Compendium. This entry lists several treasures, which according to the text are "kept by one of the famous old clans of the Colymar tribe".

Which tribe is it? According to Sartar Rising Vol. 3: Gathering Thunder Orane's Spindle is owned by the Orlmarth clan. Does this mean, that all the other treasure listed in the entry of the Jonstown Compendium are also kept by the Orlmarth clan?

The fact that the Orlmarth clan has a strong connection to Orane (e.g. Orane's Loom is a holy place in the lands of the Orlmarth clan) is also a strong hint, that these treasures are kept by this clan.

I guess the text entry is not naming the clan directly to make it possible, that these treasures could be assigned to any clan (of the Colymar tribe), which you want to use in your game. But I would like to know the canonical assignment.

Hopefully this one catches real rule issues better (including typos, which may confuse understanding of rules ...).

p.16 – Law rune listed as a Power rune. Power runes are organized in antagonistic pairs – so what would be the antagonist to Law? And the Guide to Glorantha lists Law as a Condition rune (on p.149).

p.53 – The Ambitious Noble: “She spends [nine] of her ability points to raise various abilities; she keeps [three] in reserve “just in case.””

p.53 – Character Sheet: “Ability Points: [3]”
           To summarize: Earth +3, Life +1, Noble +4, Ambitious +1 = 9

p.53 – Character Sheet: “Air 11W Devotee of Orlanth (passionate, proud, unpredictable, violent) Lightning Spear +1 Feat Thunderer +1 [Proud +1]
(He already gets Proud at 11W through the Air Rune even if he doesn’t take it as a breakout ability, thus it doesn’t make a lot of sense to take it as a breakout ability from the Mastery Rune at a lower rating of 18, doesn’t it?!? Thus, Air 11W Proud +1)

p.54 – The Proud Thane: “He adds his distinguishing characteristic, proud, as a breakout ability of his [Air] Rune.”

p.54 – The Proud Thane: “As additional abilities, Neil takes an allied spirit as a companion; a magical lightning spear (a breakout ability of the Air Rune); and a [relationship (Lunars killed my wife)].”
(According to the feat rules on p. 146, as a newly-minted devotee Vargast got his Thunderer feat for free. Besides, his “Lunars killed my wife” ability also has to be accounted for.)

p.63, point 6 – can you spend more than one Hero Point on one dice roll or just one? p.60 says that one per dice roll is the maximum but p.63 appears to contradict this by saying “any number”.

Quote

Harald Smith in old glorantha.com forum, July 5, 2015 at 9:53 pm:

In my game, we use the rule on p.60 – one HP per die roll maximum (whether single contest or a given round/exchange within an extended contest). Others may do differently.

Addendum: in point 4 on p.63 Hero Points are also mentioned as a means to create bumps for successful die rolls. This remark is not in the (quite similar) list description of Simple Contests in the HeroQuest Core Rules. HQ:CR allows using multiple Hero Points for bumping Simple Contest results (HQ:CR, p.23), whereas HeroQuest Glorantha does not (p. HQ:G, p. 60). So this leaves the impression, that this is a copy/paste/not modified error, i.e. point 6 should be deleted from the list on p. 63 completely ...

p.68 – Samastina’s Saga: Meeting with the Queen: “”The base difficulty is 14 plus […] W2 (for being Nearly Impossible), bringing the difficulty to [14]W2. Claudia declares, “You have a difficulty of [14]W2.” Everyone gasps. “It is well known that Samastina’s clan and Hendira’s political faction are at odds with each other, and Hendira deeply distrusts this ambitious girl. You need to overcome the difficulty of [14]W2 with your 6W, your mastery cancels out one of mine, giving me an [14]W against your rating of only 6.””

p.68 – “Meeting with the Queen”, I don’t understand why the difficulty modifier for Samastina’s Nearly Impossible task is 2W2. p113 shows the modifier for Nearly Impossible as Base+W2. Am I missing something?

The base difficulty is 14 plus W2 (for being Nearly Impossible), bringing the difficulty to 14W2.

Difficulty should be +W2 for Nearly Impossible (instead of +2W2).

p.128 - Another rules question, this time about the example tables on p128, particularly the second one for the resources of Nochet after the siege.

Quote

Steve Hammatt in old glorantha.com forum, July 10, 2015 at 12:36 pm:

Either I’m misunderstanding, or the second table doesn’t match the combination of the text and the previous table.

Here is what I understood, showing who is looking after which resource, their level of success/failure, and what effect I understood this would have based on the first table:

Communication (Orensulva) – Marginal Defeat : 18 (bolstered) -6 = 12
Magic (Vargast) – Minor Victory : 12W (bolstered) -3 = 9W
Morale (Samastina) – Marginal Victory : 18 (bolstered) -3 = 15
War (Karganvale) – Major Defeat : 1W (bolstered) -6 = 15
Wealth (Magatheus) – Marginal Victory : 9W (bolstered) -3 = 6W
Comparing this to the second table, Communication looks right, Magic should be “9W (-3)” and not “9W (base)”, Morale should be “15 (-3)” and not “15 (+3)”, War should be “15 (-6)” and not “15 (-3)”, and Wealth should be “6W (-3)” and not “6W (-6)”.

Quote

Harald Smith answered in old glorantha.com forum, July 18, 2015 at 2:46 am:

What is not shown is the set of Base values for Nochet resources.
I believe these should be:

Communication 18
Magic 9W
Morale 12
War 18
Wealth 12W

The attempts to bolster the resources yield the following, which is shown in the Bolstered view:

Communication – marginal defeat – no change = 18
Magic – minor victory – +3 = 12W
Morale – major victory – +6 = 18
War – minor victory – +3 = 1W
Wealth – minor defeat – -3 = 9W

The start of the Siege is described with immediate effects on the city’s resources.
Originally, I thought the results of those resource changes were not shown. But I think what is applied is the Resource Depletion results – using those against the Bolstered values I believe the results would be:

Communication – marginal defeat – -6 = 12
Magic – minor victory – -3 = 9W
Morale – marginal victory – -3 = 15
War – major defeat – -6 = 15
Wealth – marginal victory – -3 = 6W

And those match up to what is shown is the state of Nochet Resources after the Siege, which is what is stated in the text: “the siege depletes many of the resources of Nochet, as per the second table below”. The figures in parentheses simply note the difference from the Base level (before bolstering).

@Steve: splitting this list into two threads makes sense. I will do as soon as I find another time slot .

35 minutes ago, Rick Meints said:

Much of this is not what we would call errata. Most of this is spelling/grammar/typo related.

renamed the thread a bit. Does that sound better?

most of the list is based on the work of others.

The main source are some threads from the old glorantha.com forum from Moon Design:

• HQG: Let's crowdsource a proper errata!
• Rules Questions

Many thanks to @Steve and @Christoph Kohring, who were of the main contributors to this list.

after the topic popped up again in the G+ forum I decided to start a thread for an unofficial HeroQuest:Glorantha typo/spelling/errata list.

the idea is to use this thread for compiling known typos and rule errors.

I will add additions to the main list in the original posting.

p.46 – Assigning Ability Ratings – “one of the character creation methods” seems like a hangover from HQ2’s various methods as opposed to just the one in HQG.

p.46 – ditto – 1W was defined earlier on p33, not “later”.

p.53 – Samastina- The Ambitious Noble: “She then adds her distinguishing characteristic, [proud,] which she decides is a breakout ability from her noble keyword.”

p.53 – Vargast - The Proud Thane: “Neil has a copy of the Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes book and makes his hero from the [Orlmarth] clan of the Colymar Tribe.” (Vargast is an Orlmarthing, i.e. he is a member of the Orlmarth clan…)

p.53 – Character Sheet: “Hero: Vargast the Thunderer, Proud Thane of the [Orlmarth] Clan”

p.53 – Character Sheet: “Mastery 17 […]”

p.53 – Character Sheet: “Distinguishing Characteristic: Proud [12W] (from [Air])”

p.53 – Character Sheet: “Community: [Orlmarth] clan 13”

p.53 – Character Sheet: “Ability Points: [2]”
            To summarize: Air +10 = 10

p.53 – Character Sheet: “Unspent Additional Abilities: 2″ is indeed correct!
To summarize: Lightning Spear +1, Lunars killed my wife 13, Companion: Firewind = 3

p.54 – Karganvale - Character Sheet: “Flaws: Incapable of love [9]W Geas of Humakt: Never Forgive a Betrayal [7]W” (The Geas should have the same rating as the Gift & Incapable of Love -as a “normal” flaw- should have a rating the same as the highest ability, i.e. Magical Sword Neckchopper at 9W.)

p.54 – Character Sheet: As an initiate of Humakt, Karganvale should have a Sword Fighting ability somewhere or other… The easiest way is to put a breakout ability under the Death Rune with a +1 rating. Cf. p.166: “All Humakti have the Specific ability of Sword Fighting at least at the same rating as their Death Rune. Although this ability is linked to their Death Rune rating, it is an independent ability, improved separately, and can be augmented by the Death Rune.”

p.54 – The Vengeful Mercenary: “Franziska agrees that [it] is exactly [the] sort of god she wants her heroine to worship and gives her the Runes of Darkness, Death, and Truth, at 17, 1W, and 13 respectively; [she also] makes her an initiate of Humakt.”

p.54 – Character Sheet: “Community: Thirstless spirit society 13″ should go as it is already subsumed under the Spirit Rune according to p. 136 of the rules. Else it should become an additional ability & be paid accordingly, i.e. “Unspent Additional Abilities: 1”

p.54 – “He takes two [..] [charms] from the Thirstless spirit society (to broaden the range of [magic] available to Herrox);”

p.68 – Samastina’s Saga: Meeting with the Queen: ““Great,” agrees Claudia. “So the goal is that you want the queen to bestow emissary status on [your] group.””

p.68 – Samastina’s Saga: Meeting with the Queen: ““I have a Mastery over you, remember you have only a 6 and I have [14]W and so my mastery bumps your failure down to a [f]umble.””

p.68 – Samastina’s Saga: Meeting with the Queen: “”Claudia reads from the Describing […] Results table:”

p.70 – Esrolian Factions: “After the Masters of Luck and Death [contest] fail[\s] to replace the God-King of the Holy Country after his disappearance in 1616, the unity of the Holy Country is quickly torn apart. Esrolia is troubled by struggles between the pro-Lunar Red Earth Alliance of Queen Hendira, the anti-Lunar Old Earth Alliance of the priestesses of Ezel, and the ambitious Warm Earth Alliance, led by the [Demivierge] of Rhigos and her armies of savage spearmen. The conflicts between the factions grow in intensity until they break out into open warfare in 1622.”

p.70 – (as well as other pages) there are references to the “Resolution Point Table.” On p. 70, the second table is labeled “Extended Contest Resolution Points.” After looking for the “Resolution Points Table” and not finding it, I realized that the “Extended Contest Resolution Points” might well be the Resolution Point Table. Is it? If so, I don’t think it should be labeled “Extended Contest Resolution Points” — because it is used for both Simple and Extended contests. Yes? It simply is the “Resolution Points Table” and spits out information for Group Simple Contests and Group Extended Contests. (That is, if I’m correct about the Table’s purpose!)

The same labeling of the table appears on the table among the charts at the back of the book on p. 243.

p.71 – Samastina’s Saga: Leaving Nochet (part 1): “”Franziska says, “Karganvale uses her Sense Assassin breakout from her Death Rune to choose a safe route out of the city. That’s at [7]W.”” (Cf. p. 54)

p.71 – Samastina’s Saga: Leaving Nochet (part 1): ““Franziska, your Sense Assassins ability is specific against the Blue Moon Assassins tracking you, so you get a Specific Ability Bonuses of +6, [which puts you] at [13]W.””

p.74 – repetition under point 3 of Extended Contest Sequence.

p.74 – the last two paragraphs of the section on Extended Conquest Sequence (just before Parting Shot) are repeated and can be removed.

p.75 – 1st para, “He tells” should be “He tells them”.

p.80 – Cragspider should be Dead, not Dying, since losers add 1 to their scores on the Climactic Consequence table?

Cragspider was knocked out with 7 points. The player declined a parting shot. The GM added the Loser Point, bringing Cragspider points to 8: Dying.

p.83 – 2nd para, “following table” should be “table above”.

p.84 – last para says that the winner never scores less than a Minor Victory, but the table allows for a Marginal Victory.
CLIMACTIC SCENE VICTORY LEVEL – the table is wrong – hurt gives a minor victory.

p.91 – sidebar, 2nd para, “religious” should be “religions”.

p.98 – 1st column, 4th to last para, “loosing” should be “losing”.

p.115 – 2nd column, 1st para after Arkat story, “as follows” should be “as shown in the previous diagram”, or similar.

p.116 – Complete Defeat mentioned in text, presumably at King’s Banquet, so should be a double arrow in diagram. Should earlier para (3rd in 2nd column) refer to major and complete being double arrows?

p.119 – 2nd column, 2nd para, “Game Mastery” should be “Game Master”.

p.127 – Gaming Tips – “this chapter”? This isn’t a chapter, perhaps “section”?

p.130 – 2nd column, 2nd para, extraneous colon.

p.146 – Feats, “of one your” should be “of one of your”.

p.157 – 1st column, 2nd para, add “and” before “he fled”.

p.190 – bottom of 1st column, “the scope *of* these rules”.

p.204 – point 2, “deduce … for” doesn’t make sense. “from”?

p.222 – 2nd column, second para says. Example is from Uncommon Events. The boxed text after this paragraph says Rare Events. In fact, the Guide to Glorantha lists this example under Uncommon Events, so the header in the boxed test is wrong.

p.221 – 1st column, last para, ” link” should be “linking”.p.224 – 1st column, 3rd para, “herder” should be “herders”.

p.229 – The Army of Darkness – “someone” should be “somehow”.

p.230 – 2nd column, 4th para, “Within it” should be “Within is”.

p.230 – last bullet “it was dead ruler” should be “it was a dead ruler”.

1 hour ago, creativehum said:

...

It may be that I'm reading RQ2 with an unfair hindsight. But while you are correct that acts of initiation are not spelled out, the matter isn't obscure. It seems to me to be a matter of a) the player gathering resources to make his best bid for success into the cult; and  the having NPCs offer the opportunity to the PCs.

While I appreciate that HQ:G nails this all down concretely in character creation, for reasons stated above I am intrigued with holding that off and making the learning of the mysteries of the runes being something earned through play. 

In fact from my point of view HeroQuest:Glorantha is supporting this approach the same way as Runequest does. My understanding is, that a character get his Rune associations (called Rune Affinities) with his initiation as a grown-up, i.e. he learns which God is his patron from now on. This is, what is simulated with the Rune keyword assignments during the Character creation in HeroQuest:Glorantha.

This is similar to catholic or protestant confirmation rituals (using a real world example for clarification). You are now a fully accepted member of your religious community (called a cult in Glorantha). You are now allowed to participate in all the rituals of your religion/cult. You are even able to use some of the magic your God provides (in the form of breakout abilities to your runes).

But you are far from really understanding the mysteries of your Runes and your Cult. You still have to learn a lot before you are able to make the next step of becoming an Initiate of your God. Only now you are able to use all the Power of your Rune(s) freely. And still you have to learn a lot more about the mysteries of your Runes, before you are able to become a Devotee, which is truly able to act like his God by using the Feats provided by his/her Cult.

Granted, the character creation process of HeroQuest:Glorantha allows to skip this process by becoming an Initiate or a Devotee from the beginning. But you don't have to do it that way. Depending on the type of game your Gamemaster wants to play, you could also start your Character on a lower level, which still has to make his way to becoming an Initiate.

And as far as I know and was already mentioned, HeroQuest:Glorantha was the first system using Runes as integral part of the game mechanics.

Thanks for the fast answer!

Does this mean we should see the entry in the Guide to Glorantha as a typing error?

While preparing a new HeroQuest Glorantha character for a new player, who wants to use Flamal as his patron deity I've run into the issue, that the runes given for this god differ depending on the source book you're using:

• Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes, p. 106 - a rune, which could be read as Aldrya but probably should be Plant, Life
• Guide to Glorantha, Vol. I, p. 150 - Plant, Infinity, Plant
• HeroQuest Glorantha, p. 141 - Plant, Harmony, Plant

Which rune combination is the correct one to use (in a HeroQuest context)? Although the Guide of Glorantha should be the definite source if in doubt, I tend to use the HeroQuest Glorantha version (besides other reasons because it is the latest publication). But I would like to get some confirmation (from an official source would be greatly appreciated ).

@Lurking Grue: this was discussed some days ago in the G+ Glorantha Community in the following post: https://plus.google.com/+ChristophKohring/posts/VbwawqdW5W3

Bottom line: it's coming ...

The description of the Background and Occupational Keyword for the Urban Occupation Entertainer in Sartar:Kingdom of Heroes, p.20 contains a list of possible specific entertainers, that could be selected. This list mentions a shout-singer. Never heard about that. Is anybody able to explain this type of entertainer?

The next one may be a tricky one:

God Time vs. Gods Age

Both terms are used in HeroQuest Glorantha, and from my point of view these are different terms for the same mythological era, and therefore I would translate them to the same single term in German.

But I would like to hear, what the combined force of Glorantha experts thinks about this approach ...

On p. 101 under Defensive Responses you can read the following:

"... If the hero wins the exchange, he lodges 2 fewer Resolution Points against his opponent.
  If the hero loses the exchange, the number of Resolution Points lodged against his opponent decreases by 1."

Ok, the first sentence is clear. If I choose to use a Defensive Response in an extended contest, I will score not as many Resolution Points as I would using a more aggressive attack mode, i.e. I will 2 fewer Resolution points than normal.

But it seems the second sentence is wrong, because if the hero loses the exchange, he will lodge no Resolution points at all against his opponent ...
So probably the Resolution points lodged against him will be decreased by 1.

From my point of view this is another entry in the HeroQuest Glorantha errata ...

Which leads directly to my next questions:

What is the current way to submit errata? Is there kind of an official errata available, or do I have to trust, that found errors are incorporated into the PDF? How do I know, if the PDF has changed (besides downloading it and checking directly)?

There was talk on G+ as well as on the old HeroQuest forum on glorantha.com about kind of an alternate method for creating an errata/submitting errors (under the lead of David Scott, I think), but I've never seen any conclusion about this topic.

31 minutes ago, soltakss said:

 

The fire comes from the Sky, when generat separated Earth and Sky, he knocked the Sky off its axis and the north part moved up a bit while the southern part moved down so that it touches the earth. The fires of the Sky flow down and fall on the earth, causing an intolerably hot area, part of the Hero Plane, with a desert on the edges.

 

That's the explanation I was looking for!

The World of Glorantha description in HeroQuest Glorantha starts with

Quote

... The Sky overhead is an off center bowl ...

 

Never catched, what that means, but now I understand. Is this in the Guide to Glorantha? Or is there a different source?

Thanks to Joerg and Rick. This helps a lot.

Rick, congratulations to this awesome RQ2 reprint kickstarter. I understand wholeheartedly, that you need a break here ...

What I learned through this thread is, that having a veerryyy long history with Glorantha and all the available long out-of-print publications does help to understand certain names a lot. (I've never considered Nochet to be a name, which could be translated - and even now I will handle it that way.)

But although being aware of the difficulties of translation here is my next question anyway:

Bagnot = do not bag this town, i.,e. do not ransack this town?

(remember: I try to understand the meaning of certain names. I'm not looking for translations ...)

23 hours ago, Manu said:

I'm not sure that it is a good idea to translate. As not all sources will be translated (in German, Spanish or French), then you will have difficulties using all sources.

 

It took me a while to find Applelane, when I was using 'Sentir de la Pomme' for many year. (and it was the easy one. I don't even remember how they translated 'Furthest').

Indeed translating the names has some consequences. The obvious example are the maps provided with all these great Glorantha related publications. On these maps all names are printed in  their English versions. Of course you can try to modify these maps too, but this is quite a challenge (I've tried already for one or two maps) and needs much more effort than just find a translation for a name ...

So I understand, that you can see translating the names as a questionable approach at least.

But I'm mainly interested to create a good story through a game session and this involves creating the right flair and atmosphere. And using translated names adds a lot to that.

Another point is, that there already exist German versions of several Glorantha based publications (e.g. Apple Lane, Glorantha - Introduction to the HeroWars), which use the same approach (i.e. translating 'speaking' names into a German version of that name), so I'm just following an existing tradition .

And if my players really want to dive into existing Glorantha material not yet translated , I will provide them happily with a glossary giving them the original names.