metcalph

35 minutes ago, g33k said:

Soccercalle cited problematic (contradictory) dates for Jostharl from KoS.

SC said the dates conflicted, was corrected on this and acknowledged the correction. 

JRE is persisting with the conflicting dates despite the correct dates being pointed out at least twice in this thread.

You shouldn't be making creative explanations for something that didn't exist in the first place. 

5 hours ago, JRE said:

I know they do not work like that. I was just trying to reconcile contradictory evidences without throwing any of them out of the window.

What contradictory evidence is there?  Leika and Jostharl lived a century apart!

KoS p180 has Jostharl ruling from 1525 to 1535 ST.  Leika herself is mentioned in the same document with the years 1625 to 1638 ST.  

16 hours ago, dumuzid said:

 Is Greg's idea from Revealed Mythologies that Doraddi societies reject sacrificial worship of the gods still a part of the equation? 

Rather than make special rules about High Shamanic Ideal, I'd say that Pamalt has a regular RQ style cult (Tales #11 is the fullest bar the prosopedia) with the following caveats:

• The Pamalting are expected to know as much spirit magic as possible.  
• Rather than sacrifice for Rune Magic at a temple, the Pamalting learns them from Spirit Cults instead.  

In other places, such as the northern coast, Pamalt might have a more conventional cult with organized temples

16 hours ago, dumuzid said:

Going deeper, what sorts of magical interactions arise from the Necklace of Pamalt?  Does the Necklace affect Pamalt's access to associated cults, cult spirits etc.?

The Necklace is IMO pretty much the same as the Storm Tribe or Orlanth's Ring, the relationship of the Gods of Pamaltela to Pamalt and vice versa.  

7 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

 

Any thoughts on ice demon stats, again RQ3 rules are being used here. I assume, again all shapes and sizes? Could be spirits, golems made of sow or ice? Maybe someone in Caldvale is named Elsa? No that would be just terrible and wrong?

Ice demon stats are found in the Somking Ruins and Other Stories p181-182 

The people serving the sorcerors (Princes, Fighters and Commoners) would worship any city god.  Whether it is the guy who founded the city (normally a non-sorceror as building stuff is a worldly distraction)  or a demon summoned and bound by the leading sorcerer of the city is another matter.

City Gods in Seshnela are usuaully Noble Ancestors.

I think the Loskalmi would rely on the bound gods or spirits that are fed by the commoners.  The Loskalmi who are worshipped for being saints/ascended masters have achieved more important stuff than founding a mere city (case in point - Siglat).

The Arkati have normal city gods.  

Coz he's always on the move and difficult to get hold of.

33 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

the big issue/question I have :

Iron is the death metal. Does that mean Death is a mostali creation ?

The Dwarves say Yes.  Everybody else says No.

17 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Arkati may be illuminates but will not use by any mean chaos. They will kill, steal or break because doing that, they protect the (god) world (so they consider they are good)

Some Arkati (specifically followers of Arkat the Devil) do use Chaos.  

1 hour ago, Nicochan said:

We know about Belvani and his Sun Dragon heresy.

We know he worked as an ambassador during the Lunar occupation of Prax.

We know he is a Nysalor Illuminate.

Does this mean he follows the Lunar Way? Is he a fan of Chaos? Does he "play" with both Chaos and Dragons? Does he simply not "care" and just uses all the options available? 

He's more of a draconist than a Nysaloran illuminate, having been converted IMO through the agency of the sinster Daystar.  As such he would hang around with dragonewts rather than chaos.  

The Entekosiad potrays Etyries as a near contemporary of Valare Addi suggesting she was active in 1220 ST.   If she came from South Peloria, Esrolia would have been barred by the Inhuman Occupation.

19 minutes ago, Garrik said:

Then again at some point I got the impression that Hykim & Mikyh were God Learner stuff too, the names of dragons (or the same dragon). So Hykimi could substitute the Korgatsu tradition? But the same people/group, of course.

The God Learners rarely invented names from whole cloth - the names in their in their monomyth were taken from elsewhere.  So merely because Hykim appears in the monomyth does not preclude it from appearing earlier.

I don't think there is a Hykimi pantheon/tradition any more.  The Serpent Beast brotherhood who might have had common myths backed the wrong side in the Gbaji Wars and ended up destroyed.  The Fiwan are either too far south or under the protection of the Elf Empire.  That only leaves the Hsunchen in the Shan Shan.

18 minutes ago, Garrik said:

Are there other collective terms for the animal-people and their spirit tradition?

There is Fiwan, a Pamaltelan term.

18 minutes ago, Garrik said:

Also, as there are and historically have been a lot of Hsunchen in western Genertela, do the Westerners and the Orlanthi have local terms for these?

Hykmi.  

A base for the pirates within the Mirrorsea would be the County of the Isles off the coast of Heortland (Guide p251)

11 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Aren't there troll pirates in their black galleys?

Jrustela, I'd think.

6 hours ago, Garrik said:

Looking at the Fronelan Greenwood in the early First Age (GtG 127) and early Second Age (GtG 132), there's something very interesting going on with its eastern borders. At the time of the Second Council, the Greenwood dominated modern Carmania and Eol; then withdrew; then was partially back in modern Satrapy of Spol c. 700 ST.

In the Fortunate Succession, there's some elf reforestation going on in those regions in the late Dawn Age and early Imperial Age.  Why it collapses is unstated with any number of reasons being possible.

4 hours ago, Garrik said:

There is Harram Wall in northern Loskalm (GtG 206-207), built in the Second Age to guard against something coming from the north. Not against the Chaos-ridden Dilis Swamp, which is very close. So clearly at one point during the Second Age there was a threat of invasion from the north. 

Probably the trolls of Oral-Ta which is closer to the Wall than Southpoint. 

5 hours ago, Garrik said:

Here is a loooong-stretched speculation: English is not my native language, but could the exact term 'Syndics Ban' somehow refer to a specific representative body of some sort of official/bureaucratic syndics in the Fronela/Janube region? A general cutting of communication between polities could have many different names, and I've always wondered why so specific a name was chosen for this curse. What syndics? Sounds so official. Somewhere I read the Malkioni have influenced the Janube region terminology a lot. So maybe this echoes some sort of continuing, low profile Loskalmi/Malkioni meddling without conquest.

EDIT: Or maybe the syndics were Lunar, and the ban was directed against Lunar influence in the Janube region. An subtle yet terrible influence that could not be fought against in any less drastic manner?

Since Snodal was one of the Syndics, it seems to me that the Syndics were leaders of the settled Fronela.  Which would make the other leaders come from Arrolia, Alem, Jonatela etc.  Hence I'm inclined to see the Syndic as being that of a real world equivalent - an equivalent of a mayor or councillor.  But all this depends on whether Greg was influenced by Anarchism...

5 hours ago, Garrik said:

And then there's Xemstown, which I understand was a colony - but from where did these Trolls come? Probably not over the Rockwoods, where the only pass is guarded by Dwarves? So more probably from somewhere in Fronela.
 

According to Trollpak p31, Xem and his fellows is from the Kingdom of Seshnela having been found there by Jonat Bigbear.  How Trolls got to Seshnela (ie not Guhan) is a big question that is probably unanswerable since the Luatha destroyed all the evidence.

7 hours ago, jajagappa said:

When did Third Eye Blue rule a great empire?

I had understood based on the original text in Different Wolds that the Third Eye Blue Empire was in mythical times (ie in the Storm Age) and that the casting down of their Empire was the eruption of Nida.  They did aid Daxdarius (fortunate succession p82, entekosiad p85) but no mention of iron then.

EDIT:  The relevant text from different worlds is:

Quote

They are the blacksmiths and they once held the secret of
working iron inviolate until robbed by the Third Eye Blue
people of the land of Fronela many centuries ago.

And

The Third Eye 
Blue people, for instance, were once 
rulers of Fronela (so they say), but 
were overthrown by dwarf-supported 
humans who resented the theft of 
iron-working secrets by the Third 
Eye Blue Founder hero in a previous 
age.

So the TEB were the first to work iron after the example of their founder.  Since the TEB were active in the Storm Age, their Empire and overthrow would have been around then.  The parenthetical so they say would be untenable for an Imperial Age Empire because other people would have noticed.

3 hours ago, Ian Thomson said:

**Ideas Sought on EWF Sorcery**

Basically I am considering these options for the expanded Rough Guide to Pavis City section on running adventures there

To add a line to many NPCs after Spirit Magic, called 'EWF Cantraps', and to have some simple little titles there like 'Sparkfingers', 'Heal Graze', 'Tough Skin', 'See in Darkness', 'High Jump'. Mostly daily/vocationally useful stuff and just a few per person

Then for a few more powerful personalities also have a line 'EWF Sorcery' with more potent titles in, such as: Scale Skin, ForcePush, , but falling short of things like Dragonwings and Firebreath except for maybe some epic NPC major foes

Many years ago I was part of an official HW Playtest that was set in the time of the EWF, and my Sartarite character generation option had a choice of profession that included a few simple draconic sorcery options. All pretty simple like Spirit Magic, except I remember that I had a Rune Magic equivalent (Ie something I couldn't use often, but was great for emergencies) which was 'Breathe Fire'. The sense of the character was that they were IIRC a follower of Orlanth Dragonfriend and progressing well through the cult

And I have some questions.

1) I read somewhere ages ago that in the EWF a lot of people had access to minor draconic magics and thought nothing of it. Used as an alternative to Spirit Magic. Is that potentially a true concept or was it only rare and specialised people who had any?

2) What are these minor draconic magics? Were they all directly to do with draconic powers or more just mystical abilities in general of a wider range?

3) Did people have both EWF Sorcery and Spirit/Rune Magic (as I seem to remember reading), or only one of them?

4) If the consensus is that many people did have minor EWF Sorcery skills I would love some ideas for cantrap names and titles of more major sorcery effects

5) If anyone has a simple sense of running such things in the game I would definitely consider including a half-page description of how to run such things in game. Otherwise I'll leave the mechanics up to each GM

Thanks very much

On the subject of EWF sorcery (assuming the Rough Guide is set in the heyday of Pavis). set in RQ terms.

I think people could only cast Dragon magic if they had been draconized first (basically spoekn to a dragon and aquired draconic wisdom etc).  For most humans learning dragon magic would be the same as learning rune spells (even to the extent that they cast the Dragon Magic as a normal rune spell and not at SR 1 as the inscrutable Dragonewts do)  Alternative ways of learning Dragon Magic (ie as a shamanic gifts or through sorcery) are more exotic.

I think there is no essential difference between the EWF cantrips and spirit magic.  The EWF cantrips were created primarily to acquire draconic wisdom (in order to learn the *real* Dragon Magic) *but* people kept using these cantrips for mundane purposes.  For example Scaled Skin would just be the spirit magic protection spell which has the visible effect of covering the skin in faint scales.  The more EWF cantrips you cast, the better your chance of becoming draconically wise but the odds would be on the level of doubling a chance of winning a lottery ticket.

If you think EWF cantrips should be more powerful than spirit magics, then a way to model it might be to stipulate that casting an EWF cantrip in the presense of a dragon (even one that is sleeping) would be amplified by one magic point.

People can use Dragon Magic, Rune Magic and Spirit Magic at the same time.  A good example is Obduran who established the cult of Orlanth Dragonfriend. 

2 hours ago, Richard S. said:

Also I'm curious whether y'all think people like Rockheart and Strongbark's parties could still fit in current canon. 

Rockhart is from Greatway.  His worship of Mostal could be explained as a conscious imitation of non-mostali ways to recreate the original (now lost) worship of Mostal.  Nida probably has a file on him labelling him an apostate and Greatway refuses to take any action against him to annoy Nida.

7 hours ago, Godlearner said:

Those barbarians should be grateful for the honor given them. Their names will live forever!!! (or until a Humakti cast a Turn Undead)

I actually think the sacrifice of the Riverfork Horse was a dart competition move by person or persons unknown.

5 hours ago, jajagappa said:

But there's always Indlas Somer! 😉

I actually suggest that Indlas Somer should be in the HQ 1.0 rulebook but sadly it was not to be.

1 hour ago, Ian Thomson said:

Hi there

I am just reading online things like according to Pavis: Gateway to Adventure Joraz Kyrem died in 885ST and had named sons, and they were Kings, and one of them invited Labrygon to build the Puzzle Canal in Pavis City in 920

Was this information also in the original Pavis pack or was it invented for the new Moon Designs release?

The material was actually in Mongoose's Pavis Rises material but the origin of that I have no idea.

1 hour ago, Ian Thomson said:

But since it seems (and maybe I am mistaken about this) to actually contradict some things I discussed with Greg (such as Labrygon being present in Pavis much earlier).

Personally I would stick with what you originally decided as the Jonstown Compendium products are allowed to deviate from canon.  Perhaps there's a reason why the official history as according to the Cult of Pavis is denying Labrygon's earlier presence?