Martin Dick

Obviously YMMV, but personally I found that it was a valuable addition to the discussion on Heroquesting. Yes, unsurprisingly, it builds on other people's work and the endless discussions that have taken place on places like the Glorantha Digest over the last 30 plus years, but it's a mostly coherent (I don't think the topic lends itself to coherency, so mostly is about as good as it gets. I'm not sure even that the official rules will get past mostly, though I'm hoping) discussion of the topic and many of the elements can easily be adapted to a RQG campaign. I've read it through twice and looked in to it several times while writing stuff. And it has definitely given me food for thought. I think the price was money well-spent. Overall, I would give it an 8 out of 10 as a product and a 7 out of 10 as a set of HeroQuesting rules, but for me only an official set of rules for HQs can get above a 7/10. As well, if we're trying to make this a positive and constructive forum, then a little bit of respect for people like Simon who are making a great effort to contribute to the Jonstown Compendium probably wouldn't go astray. PS. I liked the Crimson Bat HQ quite a lot, it's suitably over the top crazy.

Sartar (the man) as a Larnsti was a master of the Movement rune (apparently) and there are several stories of him transforming things: Sartar saves Rostakos (Colymar King) from assassins, who are turned into termites. He fought a war with a band of sorcerers and turned them into Brass Mules Sartar cursed Brangbane with the result that he turned into a Ghoul in 1501 ST - not sure about that one So, sounds reasonable for some obscure/powerful subcult of Mastakos or for the Larnsti

In Australia, some horses are started racing as 2 year olds (though this is not recommended - https://kb.rspca.org.au/knowledge-base/what-is-the-rspcas-view-on-racing-two-year-old-horses/) but the average age is 3 years old.

I've just been through Pegasus Plateau, Smoking Ruins and GM Screen Adventure Book and can only find 2 occasions where a penalty is imposed on a passion, one is for having made a success on your Honor and then ignoring it and doing the dishonourable thing, pretty much as per the rules. The other is a penalty to an appropriate passion (Honor, Loyalty) for oathbreaking and there is no Passion roll involved at all. But maybe I've missed the examples you are talking about? Are you talking about Jonstown Compendium publications? But I agree that reducing a passion because you failed, is probably not a good idea in general

But you only reduce your passion on a Fumble, a failure doesn't reduce the level of your passion, so with a passion of 60% it only happens that you lose 1D10% from your passion on a roll of 99-00

While personally, I think having the Morokanth be reluctant omnivores is more interesting (though darker than the alternative), I think Rick's point about this being a magical world stands. If you want your Morokanth to be vegetarian and still have them with herds of herdmen (what is the collective noun for a group of herdmen - crowd? mob? bunch? - mob sounds good to me 😈 ), and you want to avoid Darius' training issue, then herdmen are magically born with the instincts to search and gather for roots etc along with their different teeth, skin, digestive system, lack of intelligence etc. They are natural born gatherers supreme! No training needed, show them a root and they head off into the plains and find some of them with their inbuilt Detect Root magic. For MGF, they could retain that even if Alter Creature is used and gain a passion for hunting root vegetables 🙂

Not sure why anyone would have any objections to this: YGWV and all that. And it's not if there aren't a whole range of continent or cube-spanning plots going on in the Hero Wars or before (e.g. The Closing). It's an interesting thought experiment at least and could be a fun campaign if structured well. So, some questions to ask and answer for this option: Who did it? Was it the Brown Dragon? Or was it an Ernaldan conspiracy or the Esrolian Grandmothers or some fanatical Chalana Arroy? Perhaps it was Yelmites who are reimposing the Golden Age where every one obeyed Yelm and there was no war. We've got the Kingdom of War, perhaps its the Empire of Peace? It could be a descendant of Sartar and their followers who was never big on violence and they re-lighted Sartar's Flame and imposed peace on the Principality of Sartar as a Household of Harmony (as opposed to the clearly wrong direction that the Household of Death took). The harmony doesn't extend outside the borders, but as soon as you enter Sartar, violence is no longer an option. White Moonies who see it as the first step to bring about the harmony of the Goddess and the White Moon and who were leading Tatius by the nose all along. Why did they do it? And did it go how they planned? How far does it extend? Just Sartar or Dragon Pass or Genertela or the whole cube? Who is going to try and reverse it? Sort of depends on who did it? How far does it go down? Is it just War that's forbidden? Or does it apply to individuals as well and I can't spank my child even. Can I kill the rat eating my wheat? Or are we all compulsory Jainists. Does mind control count as violence? Looking at you, White Moonies 🙂. Is spreading my trees into your fields violence? Looking at you Aldryami! Where is it leading? What's the endgame? Of course the PCs will probably put the kibosh on whatever that is, but it's good to start with a destination, even if you know that you will never get there.

Sounds pretty reasonable to me 😎. You defend with who you have, so if it was always Elmal/Yelmalio that would be a problem if you didn't have an Elmali/Yelmalian around. But I think Defending X is a pretty common scenario in a Glorantha roleplaying campaign and so having a range of myths/heroquests to do that is all for the good? And personally I much prefer reading people's new myths about Yelmalio (or writing them) than see another 10 page discussion about why Elmal should still be a major player - YMMV. Is there anything else about the Eternal Ring? There's a tiny bit in the Book of Heortling Mythology, but the main effect seems to be more to allow Orlanth to summon his Eternal Ring to fight for him, rather than defending the stead at home. Of course, anyone can defend the stead, even Chalana Arroy will if needs be (though probably in terms of fleeing or hiding). Our current Chalana Arroy High Priestess of the Jonstown Temple that my character is adventuring with, would definitely find a way to save the village. So adding to the list with some possible defenders: Vinga saves the Village with both cleverness and bravery Babeester Gor saves the village, crimson becomes the new seasons colour Maran Gor saves the village, pity we had to destroy the village to save it Issaries saves the village, but it cost us a lot and somehow he was able to afford a new cloak next season Lhankor Mhy saves the village with his cunning plans, now he keeps explaining how brilliant his plan was in such excruciating detail that we sometimes wish he hadn't. PS. Yanafal Tarnils may not have a catch, but when Etyries arrives to collect the debt, you'll see the catch then 😈

Jar-eel and Annstad of Dunstop in the middle of the Battle of Dwernapple. Or he might've seduced her but given it was Jar-Eel and the circumstances, my romantic heart says it was true Uleria. "On the left, the Lunar elites charged against the the wing, and all of the sane, normal men of the world turned and fled before the Lunar Hell Sisters reached them. Those who stood firm offered a brief resistance, but soon only Annstad of Dunstop was left alive surrounded by the corpses of the Demon Lovers regiment. Jareel the Razoress came to face him , and they spoke with magic for five minutes, each ummoving. They were both covered with gore and panting from exertion. Both were from nations which hated each other, and had come miles to murder. Yet there on that horrid field they fell in love, never a vocalised word heard from either of them.. Rather than fight, the pair of them went from the field, ignoring the cries of the Lunar troops." The Composite History of Dragon Pass

No Sword Sages, only martial cults have RuneLords. No God-Talkers in the Gencon Preview edition,

I agree, that it's a great fight scene, but especially as a long time L5R GM, there's a lot more going on in an iaijutsu duel than just an attack and a failed parry and I don't really feel that the scene from Sanjuro is modelled particularly well by the RQ combat system.

I think It is actually a question of system - RQ in all its versions privileges three aspects of its world - Magic, Cults and Combat and Magic gains a lot of its privilege because it is an essential part of combat. The only subsystem which compares in terms of the attention paid to it are the Cults and they are more about the world and its context as opposed to events and resolution. Any other type of event than combat is resolved much more simply, making the game element much more simplistic compared to the game element we have in RQG combat (not a complaint from me, I like the game element embedded in the RQG combat rules - I'm in to roleplaying games, not pure roleplaying and not pure games) But there was a big discussion that I can't find about this a couple of months ago and one thing that was mentioned was Revolution d100 which is a d100 based game which is built around the idea of conflicts and a conflict can be about anything and gives an equivalent level of detail for resolving the debate in the Clan Ring as to a combat. Combat is just a specialised form of conflict. And of course HeroQuest/QuestWorlds also has a system that allows you to have conflicts with combat being resolved in a very similar way to any other conflict. As they say "If you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail", so if your system emphasises combat, then it makes using combat as the tool to solve things an easy way to design and alternatively it makes it much harder to design events where a non-combat solution can be as dramatic . If your climax is to have a great debate with the bad guy that you've discovered and convince the clan chief to have them exiled, it's a bit dull to have the lead PC roll their Orate, the bad guy roll their Orate and bang the event is resolved one way or the other. Someone commented and I think it has some truth, that the problem with RQG is that only combat has hit points. And getting back to the women are passive, men are active, I think some of that comes about (not all), because manly activities in game are mostly fighting and get a complex fun rule system and womanly activities are lots of other stuff that gets a simple (less fun) rule system, so naturally designers tend to go with the more fun rule system (some other factors being traditional conceptions from the 70s of what's important in a roleplaying game, gender stereotypes and our enjoyment of action movies etc.)

I would guess Mr Hill of Gold himself (Yelmalio) And quite possibly Ms Midwife of Time (Ernalda), after all, that's what Husband-Protectors are for 🥰

One of the things a combat system could model is the difference in skill level between a character's ability to hit with a weapon versus the character's ability to parry an attack with that weapon. That seems to reflect a real possibility in the world and RQ1/2/3 decided to implement that. Whether to implement it is really a game design decision, does it add something that is better than the additional complexity that it adds to the system. It's horses for courses, but my experience was that attack and parry were usually pretty close so not splitting it seems like a way of simplifying the system without losing very much at all. And for people who don't feel that, reverting to separate attack and parry skills seems very easy to me

Can't find it 🤔

I don't disagree that those things give power in a society, but even at the meta-level I think there's a qualitative difference between calling down a Sunspear and blasting them in to a blackened husk and excommunicating someone from the church, it's physical 'Might makes Right' power versus social power. I also don't really think myth and religion are the same thing, especially in Glorantha.

Did the Great Darkness end with Destruction? To me it ends with rebirth, when Yelm rises again. To be honest I really hope Harrek isn't lacking in free will, I would hope that an incarnation of Destruction wouldn't be so petty. It also seems to be a bit unGloranthan for a mortal to be lacking in free will.

I think an important point to consider is that myth in Glorantha is not like myth in our world. Jeff on Facebook mentioned Reminds of a bit from Campbell about the four functions of mythology: 1. The mystical 2. The cosmological 3. The sociological 4. The pedagogical. In Glorantha, it does all these, but in Glorantha myth's most powerful function is to relive the myth through HeroQuesting and gain powers/change the world as a result of reperforming the myth. On one level it's magical technology as was proved by the GodLearners, though of course it's much more than that, as was also proved by the GodLearners. I think its one of the great dangers for the powerful in Glorantha, losing the numinous aspect of myth and using it as a technology, part of the reason that Argrath goes wrong? Definitely where Tatius the Bright went wrong - Tatius: Hey, here's this massive source of raw energy, I can use it to power my TECHNOLOGICAL TERROR here! Aide: Perhaps we should do some investigation and determine the source of the power, Sir? Tatius: Take this naysayer who would deny the power of the Lunar Empire away! Danfive Xaron Inquisitor: Of course Governor I really hope it goes wrong for Harrek who seems to me to be the epitome of exploiting mythology

I didn't click to the parallel 😑 but I'm basing it as a variation on what's been discussed with the full Hill of Gold heroquest from Sandy where the successful quester gets full on physical immortality (i.e. cut their head off and they still live), but the coming back/immortality should come from Yelmalio himself rather than from Ernalda, so I've modified it as follows: And even though Ernalda was sleeping nigh unto death, she made Yelmalio her Husband-Protector and gave him her blessings and barred his soul from leaving for the Underworld and then while lying there in the cold Earth next to his wife, Yelmalio understood the power of the Cold Light that remains when the Fire has gone and he rekindled the last enduring spark of his soul and he arose and he kissed his wife and went up and brought the new Cold Light to the world that lasted until his Father returned to the Sky. Still his Fire powers were gone forever, but as all who follow him know, the price needs to be paid.

Runes - It really adds to the integration with the world of Glorantha and adds a lot of flexibility. I also really like the opposed runes, no one can be good at everything and getting stronger in one, leaves you weaker in the other Rune Points - the default is to get 3 points, not sure why you think that is a mistake, as a player, it's been a blast being able to use Rune Spells. If I compare it to my RQ3 Issaries initiate who I played for years and who never used any of his one-use Divine Magic, it's way better Passions - great roleplaying tools and a great grab from Pendragon Shaman rules - fills a big hole in the magic system Seasonal XP rolls/Worship - again, it embeds you in the world much more strongly than in earlier editions Character family history - again, gives you a built-in backstory that is often shared with the other party members, more integration with Glorantha

So, we know that most Sartarite Elmali went over to Yelmalio and realised that he had deeper and truer secrets than Elmal. But this raises the issue that the Elmal myth of guarding the stead, then needs to be replaced as it's a pretty damn useful HeroQuest. So, here's a first draft based on the myths from the Book of Heortling Mythology, any feedback/improvements very welcome Yelmalio defends the Stead It was in those darkest of times, Orlanth and the other LightBringers had been long gone on their quest and little hope remained at the stead. Ernalda lay sleeping. Babeester Gor, that mightiest of defenders had been wounded after many battles and was dedicated to guarding her Mother’s body. The Fyrd were despondent and many of them had died valiantly defending the stead. Besanga the Grey, handmaiden of Ernalda and the carrier of burdens took it upon herself to go look for help as she had briefly seen a faint light in the north and Kev had muttered in her sleep that evil things were coming to the stead and all their lives were in danger. After several days trying to find the light, she saw a warrior dressed in golden armour, wielding a strong spear in one hand and a mighty shield in the other, saving some elves from ice beasts. As he fought his light shone all around causing a minor break in the terrible Darkness that lay on the land. “Great Warrior” she said. “Can you come to our stead and defend us?” The warrior looked upon her and said “Earth Woman, you are not of my tribe or clan or family. There are many who need help at this time, why should this one come and defend you?” Besanga replied “We suffer greatly at this time and life gets ever harder, your light is both beautiful and wonderful in this world of darkness and charity is something that none can afford, so you have my word that my mistress Ernalda and I will reward you greatly for your efforts, if you defend the stead with us”. Yelmalio was taken by the sincerity of the handmaiden’s words and having heard of the generosity of Ernalda agreed to aid her and reached out with his hand and forged a pact between them Besanga transformed into her horse then carried him back to the stead. There he came upon the Fyrd and they were rowdy and noisy and did not like this stranger, so one of them challenged him, but Yelmalio quickly defeated him and threw him to the ground with his strong spear which quieted them down to some extent. Yelmalio then look upon the ragged crew and felt that he would need a truly great reward, for though they seemed to be strong, there was little discipline amongst them. Then he spotted in their midst, his cousin from long ago in the sky and he called him out with his sky name. His cousin came forth and said “In this place, I use the name Rigsdal” and Yelmalio told him that he did not care what name he used, but that he was appointing him the watcher for the stead for his eyes were as good as any star and that he needed to get up on top of the stead and keep an eye out. And it was good that he did, for creatures of darkness came upon the stead only a few hours later and but for Rigsdal’s keen eye that could see though the night, they would’ve been in the stead before anyone would have known it. A terrible fight ensued, the Fyrd fought valiantly and gloriously against the insatiable darkness but they fought as individuals and did not protect each other and two measures of the Fyrd died in that battle. None of the Fyrd could stand against the terrible Demon of Darkness that led them and all would’ve been lost save for the light and bravery of Yelmalio who stood against him and fought him to a standstill, despite taking many wounds. He may have died that day, but Rigsdal was able to circle behind the demon and shoot him with his star arrows, which gave Yelmalio one last chance to give the distracted demon a deep wound with his strong spear thus driving him and his followers away. Besanga then came to the gravely wounded Yelmalio and took upon herself the burden of his wounds and he rose again, though his power of fire had been greatly diminished and Besanga could not bring them back. The Fyrd was now grateful to Yelmalio and so when he taught them the Blessing of the Shield Wall and how each brother can protect those beside them, they all worked hard to learn this new way and put it in to practice. It was good that they did, for not too long after they had it ready, another enemy came upon the stead. The men of the green-walled city led by the dreadful Shargash came to sack the stead. Again, the battle raged but this time the Fyrd fought as one and only one measure died in the battle. Yelmalio led them and bore the brunt of the fight with the atrocious Shargash for many hours and when it looked like Yelmalio would no longer be able to endure, from the stead burst out Babeester Gor enraged by the noise and the disrespect shown to her Mother. She unleashed her fury upon the hateful Shargash and drove him from the stead. She then staggered back to the stead calling for beer to ease her wounds. Besanga then came and bound Yelmalio’s wounds and praised his valour and brought him what little in the way of luxuries remained. Soon, another threat came upon the stead, small strange creatures came around the stead digging holes and getting in the way and trying to take the stead’s wall apart. Then when they were stopped, the weird earthen denizens, summoned giants made of stone and attacked. The battle lasted many days, the Fyrd fought as one and were able to fend off many attacks though two measures died during the assaults. Again, Yelmalio led the defence and took many wounds from the stone giants while turning them to rubble. All seemed lost but then the King of the Forest arrived and attacked the stone dwellers, for he was a friend of Yelmalio and owed him for the many times that he had saved his subjects and he also hated them for the wrongs they had done to Aldrya. Once again, Besanga tended to the wounded Yelmalio and cleaned his gear and weapons and prepared him a bed to sleep on to recover from his efforts. Yelmalio defended the stead many time at great cost, but the last and greatest was when Chaos came upon the stead. It was Rigsdal who first saw it or perhaps did not see it. He came to Yelmalio and said “Something strange is on the horizon, something that I have never seen before” and soon they could see a great horde of Chaos creatures advancing upon the stead. The horde was led by two great monsters, Ovodaka who was the Foe of Ernalda and Teghern and his minions: Author of Sores, Teller of Lies and Eater of Skin. Gathered with them was a multitude of horrific creatures, warped by Chaos. Yet the Fyrd was not broken by this as they knew that if they fought as one, then led by the light of Yelmalio they would win and survive. First, the Author of Sores, a writhing boiling abomination of sore-ridden flesh approached the stead and Yelmalio went to fight it. It unleashed its terrible plagues upon him, but his light protected him and he struck it a terrible blow in return, but its flesh boiled and reformed. Then Yelmalio knew that he must make a sacrifice, taking the plague upon himself, he unleashed the last of his Fire and burnt both the plague in himself and the Author of Sores to ash. Second, the Teller of Lies, a small withered corpse of an old man, came forward and though it looked much less dangerous than the previous monster, Yelmalio could sense his mind being to warp and his Light begin to fade away. Yet he reached into the depths of his power and manifested the Truth of his soul and the Telller of Lies that had Nothing inside could not stand the Truth filling it and its head exploded and its spirit was destroyed. Third, Teghern ordered the Eater of Skin to the battle, and the creature a weird mix of both frog and insect with rasping teeth and tongue leapt at Yelmalio and attacked with its rending Song. It was a long battle and during it, the impatient Ovodaka leapt over Yelmalio who it wished to avoid if it can, leapt over the walls that were far from high enough and leapt over the Fyrd who it did not even notice at all, and went to find Ernalda, but that is not Yelmalio’s story. So, the battle went on for hours and first his golden armour was broken and then his body was broken, but his spirit was still whole and he fought on, for Yelmalio had taken many wounds in his life and he always fought on regardless. So, throwing away his broken shield, he grabbed his strong spear with both hands and with all his remaining might brought it down and skewered the Eater of Skin, and with the mighty blow, his strong spear shattered, but so did the Eater of Skin never to arise again. Sinking to his knees, he saw Teghern with his two noses like mammoth trunks, four horns on his head, and four hands upon a snake’s body signal the horde to advance upon the stead and it itself with an evil grin upon its face advanced upon Yelmalio. Yelmalio whose legs were shattered wondered how he might fight against this dread foe but then Besanga came to him as a horse and carried him in to battle. Drawing upon his last energies, he rode in to combat with Teghern knowing that he could not win, but that he had not yet lost. Just as he was about to suffer the final stroke, Besanga threw herself in to the battle bearing Babeester’s mighty shield to take the blow. The shield shattered under the Chaos creature’s strike and Besanga and Yelmalio were thrown down to the ground but both of them still lived. Yelmalio then knew that while he could not save himself, but he could sacrifice to save the stead. Thus he called upon his power of Light in his right hand and his power of Truth in his left hand and used them together to deliver a death blow to Teghern, leaving himself with none of his powers. The Fyrd seeing his valiant sacrifice had slain the Chaos Horde’s leader were inspired and swept the horde from the field though 3 measures of them died in doing so. Besanga then took the body of Yelmalio and descended into the Earth with it to where her mistress Ernalda was sleeping and called upon her to pay Yelmalio the rewards that she had promised him. And even though Ernalda was sleeping nigh unto death, she made Yelmalio her Husband-Protector and gave him her blessings and barred his soul from the Underworld and brought him back restored via her magics, though his Fire powers were gone forever. Heroquest Stations 1. Finding Yelmalio 2. Forging the Pact 3. Taming the Fyrd 4. Recognising Rigsdal 5. Drive off Zorak Zoran and the Trolls– 2 measures of the Fyrd die (20%) 6. Training the Fyrd – gain Blessing of the Shield Wall 7. Drive off Shargash and survive until Babeester Gor arrives - 1 measure of the Fyrd die (10%) 8. Drive off the Mostali and Jolanti until High King Elf arrives – 1 measure of the Fyrd die (20%) 9. Fight the Chaos Horde led by Teghern and Ovodaka – 3 measures of the Fyrd die (30%) o Defeat Author of Sores with Fire o Defeat Teller of Lies with Truth o Defeat Eater of Skin with his spear two-handedly 10. Aided and saved by Besanga, sacrifices himself and defeats Teghern 11. Saved by Ernalda Consequences · Yelmalian heroquester – loses their Fire Rune and has it replaced with a Light Rune at +10% · Yelmalian heroquester gains Immortality/Endurance? · The Stead is saved and gains Light and Truth defences for the year. Ernaldan hero-quester and Yelmalian heroquester are in a year marriage (at least)

Yes, it is, but it's intermittent, yesterday I was able to listen the your Episode 3 podcast (which was great by the way), but immediately after that it stopped working and I couldn't connect and same again today. I would say it's a problem at my end, but it's the only website where I have this problem and have had since you started godlearners.com

There is almost certainly a HeroQuest that let's you become a breatharian, but it probably isn't an easy one, but definitely would get you some reputation. Trolls would find not eating plants/animals a very easy restriction, just eat rocks. And any troll that made its way into Chalana Arroy, probably has the will power to control their appetite Eating part of a plant doesn't kill its spirit and unlike an animal, many plants will just keep on growing even if part of it is eaten with very little or no ill effects. So the harm done is minimal or non-existent. This isn't true for Dryads, Runners, Aldryami etc.

Just to let you know, but I'm regularly getting the following error message for godlearners.com - This site can’t be reached godlearners.com unexpectedly closed the connection. It might be me, but it's the only site with a problem. It's not all the time, but perhaps half the time?