Martin Dick

It's clearly possible to split the crystal as it's historical fact that an esoteric branch of the God Learners researched it. Now the criticism arising from the fact that early experiments resulted in numerous mushroom clouds on small islands several hundred key miles from Jrustela is just the sort of carping negative discussion that held up progress. The experiments were always timed so that the prevailing winds were away from GL colonies. Further details can be found in the Proceedings of the Los Alamos Divine Material Analysis Institute, though certain volumes are in rather poor condition and may require regular use of the Repair invocation to maintain readability once removed from stasis lock.

But as Jeff said Sartar himself is the guardian spirit of Sartar the country, so the Flame of Sartar can't be the wyter for the country unless a guardian spirit is different from a wyter or you can have multiple wyters

It could be the Flame of Sartar?

Issaries, until RQG I always played Issaries Goldentongues, as I really like characters that aren't melee focussed and are more socially focussed and they can build good magical support for the front line fighters (someone needs to dispel the Befuddles)

Any idea of when it might be in the Australian warehouse?

Earl Aubec of Malador https://stormbringer.fandom.com/wiki/Eternal_Champion

My copy of Mythology just arrived, ordered on the 15th, so 8 days to get to Melbourne from Sydney, so plenty of time for Xmas 🎄🎁

It will let me order the hardcopy, but will only ship it from the US 😔 and at AUD$70.00 shipping, it will have to wait

Just wait until we qet the heroquesting rules, then the egregious munchkinery will know no bounds and make illumination just another storm in a teacup, but yes, I agree illumination does allow for some prime egregious munchkinery, but personally I don't think it's a problem either in terms of illumination or heroquesting. Firstly, because Glorantha has never been balanced and in a world that includes characters like Jar-eel, Harrek, Ethilrist, Argrath, Arkat, the Only Old One, Cwim, Belintar, Ralzakark, the Red Emperor, the Crimson Bat etc. etc. etc., I don't think a bit of access to multiple spell rosters is going to be disastrous. Secondly, because egregious munchkinery in any game system is easily controlled, as the GM I can just say 'No' or more softly, as has been discussed before in this thread, there's a number of different ways of controlling egregious illumination via the societal rules and powers that exist.

If an illuminated initiate goes around openly or even covertly flouting cult strictures, sooner or later they're going to get caught and doubly so for PCs and while for normal cults they might work on three strikes and you're out, chaos cults are going to kill you on the first try normally, enjoy your life as a head hanging from the belt of the Thanatari High Priest. As for who is going to discipline you, well sounds like a perfect job for a bunch of murder-hobo PCs or a couple of Orlanthi/Humakti rune priests and rune lords. The illuminant hasn't hijacked the cult magic,they just now share it and it doesn't make them a superhero (well except Arkat) or even a hero, so a party of equivalent levels is highly likely to be able to discipline one illuminant.

Well, there maybe no supernatural retribution, but there is plenty of Cube level retribution and suffering for initiates who break cult strictures

IMO, the rule doesn't really make a lot of sense to me. RQG defines it as: So why should this be reduced automatically by 10 when dealing with other species? It doesn't make sense that when the SIZ 20 Dark Troll is trying to intimidate (a Comunication skill) a non-troll that there is a penalty instead of a bonus. And if the Dark Troll tries to inspire with Orate the group of mercenaries it has been working with for the last three years and who shares a common Loyalty passion and who has a developed a reasonable Insight (Human), why would there be any need for a penalty? Now a penalty based on circumstances for social/communication rolls because there is a different species involved and your insight in to that race is low or non-existent is perfectly sensible. Adding on the fact that modifying stats on the fly and then determining the changes to relevant skills is a complete pain, it's a rule that could happily be replaced (YRQGWV) with something like "Communication skills have a default penalty of 25% when dealing with other species unless an Insight (relevant race) roll is made. The GM should modify the penalty or even turn it in to a bonus depending upon the circumstances". You could even make it more complex (if you really want to 🤨) by having a nice grid for all the common races and putting -50% in the Dragonnewt column!

I think the difference between Glorantha and the story and the musical piece, is that Glorantha is a shared ongoing creation, while your examples are about either a single creator or a group creation that has a singular instance and which has no impact on the other pieces that they play. The single creator can vary as much as they want (and Greg did - hello Elmal, goodbye Elmal) and its their choice and in the case of stories, if they are inconsistent, then it doesn't affect anyone else and similarly for a singular musical performance, if the performers vary the perfomance, it need not have any impact on what they do the next time they play that piece. But if you are creating material and there are many different creators and they are creating over many products over a lengthy period of time in that shared creation and many of their consumers expect that those products are broadly consistent, then a canon is a very useful tool to achieve that expectation. Personally, I like knowing the canon, so that I can knowingly ignore/break it and because is satisfies the packrat tendency in my brain. But maybe it's not necessary? Do you have an example of a shared ongoing creation which is satisfying but where canon is not used? Maybe the Lovecraftian shared world which has long deviated in many ways from Lovecraft's initial vision?

Hasn't this been already done for Strangers in Prax by Ian Thomson and co? ( )

Having watched it, I'm convinced that the Barbies are all Brithini, with original Barbie being Hrestol