JonL

Also...

I also strongly suspect that the Lanbril cult's "hi-tech" thieves' tools come from smuggling contraband out of the Fall of Zistorwal during holy-day rituals, becoming members of Unity Army raiding parties, or perhaps even Mostali customs enforcers "collecting" forbidden treasures from their allies.

Wellll.....

It's kind of like the Anita Blake books, where the series started out as Urban Fantasy mysteries with some steamy elements, and then kind of became its own erotic slashfic as the series progresses. Those are less gross though, because Hamilton's thing for banging supernatural hotties is not painfully misogynistic like Norman's "Male-dominated sexual enslavement is how things should be." thing.

The erasure of Redalda as part of the deprecation of Elmal is also a loss in that respect. I preferred the Sartar that had just as many Redaldans as Humakti.

Ana Gor = Sorana Tor, which has the same suffix as ur-conflict god Kargan Tor. Gor ͌͌ Tor? Maybe.

...who especially likes to liberate land from the oppression of farmers and also thinks torture is good for you.

I much prefer it as a distinct rune, as it opens possibilities like a smuggler who is strong in Trade & Disorder, or a Lord Treasurer with Trade & Stasis, which the oppositional nature of power runes would otherwise close. Trade/Communication as a distinct lever in sorcery is nice too - Open Seas as "Combine Water with Trade" is on-point, and you can bet the Cult of Silence loves to Dismiss Communication despite being pro-Harmony. In-fiction, I'll stick with how it's presented in the Guide. Issaries, Etyries, Dormal, and Argan Argar all have it listed (Lokarnos is omitted from the pantheon roster, despite being present in the Pelorian culture section, oddly), and it's shown on some of the coin illustrations, including the Seshelan one.

If the character is just temporarily flush, I'd go with a lingering benefit or plot augment. If the player cements the benefit as a new ability, they're now someone who almost always has some coin on hand. You could keep track of the amount if you wanted to, and then have the benefit end when it's used up, or just hand-wave/abstract the specific amounts. That's a playstyle/taste driven choice. Either way, the general magnitude of the in-fiction amount can also inform credibility assessment while framing contests. "A handful," "dozens," "hundreds," and "thousands" of coins imply very different fictional possabilities, and can also guide when a temporary award gets used up. The rating however doesn't necessarily reflect how much money they have. The rating is more about how affective that wealth is in overcoming appropriate challenges. A high rating means that the character is more likely to overcome fictionally appropriate obstacles with that money, while a low one means you're more likely to hit a wall or encounter complications in leveraging your wealth to solve a problem - the official you hoped to bribe is honest, someone else is trying to corner the market on the commodity you need, a Yelmalion demands gold Wheels as payment rather than silver Lunars, etc.

The other thing that strikes me about Chariot of Lightning is that among the Ralian Orlanthi, the Bad Emperor is not Ehilm, but Malkion. Surantyr's sect is pointed squarely at dismantling the oncoming Seshnegi war machine.

Apparently there's such a thing as a "Descended Master," who knew?

Nah, watch the more capable Troopers use his memoirs as a grimoire or become an Ethilrist hero-cult (or both? probably both) to keep it going. I bet each new captain of the Troop has to prove himself by heroquesting to the Underworld and retrieving the hell Hound.

You can find a work through I did of the climax of the first Avengers film in HQ2 terms in this post over on rpg.net. You're on the right track in terms of using an extended contest, though a simple group contest can work in a pinch. As to which one is best, that really depends on how you're wanting things to feel and how interested your players are in the ebb and flow of detailed exchanges. More tactically minded players might find wagered's crunchy (by QW standards) risk vs benefits choices rewarding, while for others the extra math is a chore. Scored deferring consequences until the end can heighten tension as points scored against you hang over your character until overall victory/defeat emerges, and assisting another party member to escape looming peril (clear some of their hanging points) is a very super-hero battle move. Chained is great for situations where characters are participating in very different ways, or where you want a grittier death-spiral dynamic. The move from +/-3 results steps in HQ to +/-5 steps in QW is indeed intended to make results feel significant more quickly. While this is a good change for regular contests, if you're wanting to zoom-in to discrete chained exchanges to stretch out a climactic set-piece notching back to +/-3 steps might make sense. Again, the right choice is the one that matches your players' level of interest and engagement in the situation (and how much time you've got).

HW & HQ were a bit more fine grained in the mechanics around close results than QW has become, sacrificing a bit of specificity for the sake of simplicity. What it's now describing as ways the GM might interpret close rolls were specific outcomes in the earlier result matrix. Both approaches have their merits, and the older approach is still available for implementers to use in their games should they find it a better fit for their specific play-style goals.

Love it! If you're including the QW logo, you may need to add a second page with the SRD license. If you drop the logo, you'd probably be OK to distribute under the Fan Materials Policy. (Note: I'm just an outside contributor. I don't speak for Chaosium.)

Sheng Seleris and Argrath's examples don't seem to suggest that level of symmetry in is inherent to the Shadow. That's not to say Arkat's case didn't play out that way, just that I wouldn't presume that it must have.

Can't pinpoint, of course, but my guess would be sometime between returning from the Underworld and becoming a Troll.

I also think Arkat probably embraced Hrestolism before he was fully Illuminated. True Joy of the Heart likely has some things in common with Illumination though. The realization that the former and the latter, while not identical, are also not completely different would be an interesting step along that road.

The Vadeli recognized that Law Zero is "Those who do not keep to the Law must age and die." Their praxis of systematically breaking the rest of the Law allows them to break Law Zero as well. To escape aging via the Vadeli path, you break ALL of the Law.

That depends on whether you're asking "What's the chance of rolling a specific number twice in a row?", "What's the chance of rolling any number twice in a row?", or "I just rolled this number. What's the chance of you rolling another one?" - all of which are valid. It still gets more complicated when you bring varying ratings into it, as rolling the same number may or may not be a tie on a particular contest. In any case, smaller die means more ties, which is generally undesirable.

Interesting. The main reason to not drop to d10 is that ties are unhelpful in QW, and that halving of the roll space quadruples their likelihood (Differing ratings make it a bit more involved than just 1/400 vs 1/100, but it's proportionally similar. )

We've discussed that before, and even that there's an implicit "M0" after lower ratings. The SRD is probably more or less stable for now, but explicit notation of M1 and/or M0 is totally a thing someone building a game with QW could decide to do. It's really down to whether you want to prioritize spotting masteries at a glance on the sheet vs rigor and consistency. I definitely see the advantage of the latter in learning the concept, but prefer the former in use. How you're scaling ranges is a factor as well. If you're scaled like HQG where it's rare for M2+ to come up in play, just sticking with "M" for M1 ratings is probably cleaner. If you were scaling more like HW & HQ1 did, such that M2+ ratings were much more common, then there would likely be more value in explicitly notating M1. I similarly might go all the way to an explicit M0 for an Amber or DBZ like experience where there were explicit in-fiction power-tiers that I wanted to emphasize. In that last example though, I'd be tempted to call them something setting appropriate rather than just using a number.

Here's another one. (I haven't played in Mystara since I was a schoolboy, but it's been in my imagination since Isle of Dread.) Kairon Manre of the Minrothad Guilds Background: Guild Elsan of Seahome (Water Elf) --- Natural Navigator --- Cousins Far and Wide --- Grimoire: The Prestidigitator's Primer Profession: Manre Clan Pilot --- Grimoire: The Silver Rutter --- Can Smell the Weather Distinguishing Characteristic: A Lover in Every Port Aligned with: The Ocean Path (Neutral) Other: Sharp with a Cutlass Sharper with his Tongue Lucky at Cards Flaws: Can't Hold-on to Money Terrified of Snakes Sucker for a Pretty Face The Silver Rutter: Clan Manre's collection of essential spells for seafaring. - Read Languages - Hold Fast (Similar to Hold Portal, but works with knots & rope) - Floating Disc - Locate Object - Continual Light - Water Breathing - Summon Elemental

Mystara, eh? Meet... Tritia Eirena Ptochoprodroma, or "Irene" in Common, for short. Background: Patrikia of Thyatis (human) --- Niece of Archon Metro Ptochoprodromas ---Civilized grace Profession: Natural Philosopher (Magic-User) --- Grimoire: The Prestidigitator's Primer ---Grimoire: On the Malleability of the Three Dimensions Distinguishing Characteristic: Keen Powers of Observation Aligned with: the Supernal Principle of Law Other: Familiar, Lukas the Owl Lover of Ancient Tales Alchemikal Field Kit Flaws: Can't let go of a puzzle Used to privileged city life Sleeps like a log See here for the example D&D grimoire's I name-checked above.

Challenge Accepted!