JonL

I was only half-joking earlier in the thread about the way Edbert would turn back the flood. The kicker on something like that is that you'd need enough people backing it over a wide area such that it's not just a localized reprieve. Various groups around coastal areas all doing similar things relevant to their own cultures would become an I Fought We Won scenario. Another myth that might be invoked is Magasta rallying the Water Tribe to close the hole in the world in the first place. The birth of Nysalor might be powerful as well if that is accessible, if the sun could be made to pause above the berg for a while.

It strikes me that the "specific ability" phrase is significant understanding what was meant to happen with this. While the Death Rune could certainly encompass swordfighting, using it for such would often run afoul of being penalized as a broad ability used alongside more narrow ones possessed by other members of the party. Having either a separate ability or a breakout under Death avoids that scenario. Some sort of exceptional rule privileging Humakti sword fighters is not out of line. Exempting them from broad vs specific ability penalties when using Death for sword fighting would be one way to do that. Allowing them exempt a sword fighting breakout under Death from the prohibition on using a keyword to augment its own breakouts is another. The text seems to describe a different approach than either of those, but without quite enough guidance to implement without a GM filling in some missing details. This is a strong candidate for inclusion in a proper FAQ/errata document and any future update to HQG.

It strikes me that Dayzatar may have avoided being killed by transitioning to an abstract state of being wherein death was not conceptually applicable. If Dayzatar came to exist only as the idea (Eidolon?) of Dayzatar, there is neither form nor consciousness to separate via Death. Some Chaos gods can destroy ideas, but they'd have to somehow find him first. Would entering a state or quasi-existance where "alive" and "dead" are equally inapplicable be death in the more common sense of not being a living thing anymore? Ask Buddha after you kill him on the road.

Paging @M Helsdon.

One of the things I dig about the Orlanthi is that "All" is understood to mean "Six out of Seven" when making general statements, like "All the men in our clan initiate to Orlanth." I of course jest here because the pregens in HQG only loosely follow the creation rules as described. Yeah, I can understand tabling typos & minor grammatical errors until a new print run might be called for. I am less sanguine about declining to address contradictions, examples not following stated rules, and similar. (See the relevant thread for thorough axe grinding on this subject). Hopefully with the Arduous Success of the CoC7 fulfillment behind them and RQG shipping there will be some staff resources available to at the very least get a proper errata document together.

Issaries wasn't a rebel god as such, but he does have movement in common with several of the masks. Lokarnos is mentioned among the other gods present. It would be neat to have your PC come in with with the horse mask and somehow use movement to take trade from Lokarnos somehow.

It's the Orlanthi All, clearly. She's the one in seven who doesn't have it. 🤣

Idea: The Yelmalio little sun tradition has its God Time roots among those who dwelt in the dome ark beneath the glacier where the Emperor summoned Antirius. The Elmal little sun tradition partakes of the experiences of the Hyalorings who rode out from Nivorah rather than enter the God Time Sun Dome. The Little Sun of those that lay beneath the glacier is the cold one, bearing Pelorian trappings and phalanx magic, giving respect to authority, etc. The Little Sun of those that rode out turned its back on those things, and learned to vest authority in those who earn respect.

That certainly makes sense. What qualities then are unique to the Domers along the Zola Fel? What things do you find in Vantar or Alda-Chur that you would not in the East? How do these compare to what one would find in Saird or Vanch? The biggest difference I could find among the regional instances in the Moon Design era texts is mention in the Guide of the Yelmalio of Nochet being one of the Husbands of the Goddess.

Interesting, being mostly a HQ man, my RQ library is shallow. Looking in the RQG Previiew from last Gen Con, the Yelmalio cult has no riding related skills, though one gift & geas each relate to horses - communication with them and sparing them from cruelty, respectively. Reading between the lines of the skill list isn't how important setting info ought to be conveyed though.

PDF+POD is a viable option for niche titles with high page count these days. Onyx Path does all their post-launch sales that way. Wargame Vault's POD rates for a regular color hardback are certainly within reach. Croudfunding the cost of the license & additional costs for art and polishing layout is also not inconceivable. I wonder if they'd consider serializing it in WF. If they've had you share it with other licensees as a reference for mini ranges or the like, they obviously consider the material good too. I love this approach. The Dune Encyclopedia is one of my favorite things ever.

Bring it it back to the point of the thread-necromancy, how do you see the Hyalorings and their Elmal tradition fitting into this picture? (Even when you occasionally frustrate me, I still greatly value your making the time to participate and share here, and was happy to shake hands at Gen Con last year.)

I always love your material, Martin. I hope you get it to where you're ready to share the whole work at some point. Some pals & I are gearing up for some Glorantha-themed De Bellis Antiquitatis/Hordes of the Things, and this sort of thing would be just grand.

Neat ideas. I've had similar ideas regarding the use of Flaws and Extended Contests for long-term character-driven things. Here's an excerpt from my Flaw-variant-dump post in the House rules thread: We riffed on similar ideas in the Genre Pack Use Cases.

"Many of the Elmali converted to Yelmalio." was exactly how you & Greg phrased it in SKoH. I just searched through the PDFs of SKoH, PGtA, and the Guide for every instance of "Yelmalio" and nothing describes the Prax cult as being exceptional, nor describes ways in which cults elsewhere diverge from their practices. WRT being unmounted, no references therein (that I could find) describe any Yelmalions West of Prax as other than pikemen, archers, or the vague "militia." The section on Sun Domes in PGtA describes the Praxian model in general and plural language, and the Sun Domer description in SKoH has nothing to distinguish it from the Praxian form. So yeah, if the Praxian Sun Domers are an outlier rather than a typical case, someone reading these works is not going to have any indication of that being the case.

I also figure that while Monrogh's followers magically supporting his HeroQuest formed a core of Elmali converts by default as new truth he returned with became their new reality as well thanks to their connection to his quest, many of the later initiates will have come from free men around Vaantar who are drawn to the Sun Dome as a bulwark against the Kitori & Uz in northern Kethalia. Similarly, Alda-Chur is adjacent to traditional Yelmalion territories like Vanch & Saird, and had already begun to worship Elmal as the Golden Spearman before it became part of Sartar. When the Lunars tried to peel it off by establishing that the Golden Spearman was the son of Yelm, it made total sense for Tarkalor to send in Monrogh to tell them, "...and that particular son is Yelmalio - who is totally not a subject of the Emperor of Dara Happa." I expect that the Sun Dome Templars in modern Sartar still get a steady trickle of Elmali converts who wish to turn their backs on their previous way of life for whatever reason ("one in seven..."), but I doubt that's the bulk of their initiands now, any more than it is for the Sun Domes outside of Sartar.

I especially like the Nyaldan tale showing Little Yelm as an unsuitable suitor specifically referencing the way that the Sun Domers cloister women. That may be the thing that bugs me the most about the idea of mass Elmali conversion to Yelmalio. Some dudes will embrace mystically austere barracks lifestyle, sure, but you gotta figure that a lot of Third Age Dragon Pass Elmali are married to Redalda followers - for whom becoming cloistered full-time mothers/gardeners would be anethema.

This raises some questions in my mind. An SRD is usually fairly bare bones compared to a toolkit book like HQCR. Is the NuHQ SRD going to be an exception in that respect, or is a new in depth core-rules book on the horizon?

So, how about that Six Ages? How does all this look different having seen Elmal through the Hyaloring lens - particularly the Nyalda courtship myth with Little Yelm wanting to sequester her?

GMing an expedition into the Big Rubble for my young cousins at a family reunion, at the same table where I first played D&D back in '79. HeroQuest, Glorantha, & the Future indeed.

The way you framed it, I'd say you're spot on with someone getting wounded. If you wanted to go with a momentary rather than costly success, you could say that they slew the gaurds silently, but that it was such a bloody mess that whoever next happens by is sure to raise the alarm. They achieved their goal, but the benefit is fleeting.

Loving all the Hyaloring lore, gods & myths. How much of this is new vs dug out from old essays & Stafford Library materials?

Suggestion: Make the Core Rune Font and Columbus (or Christoforo) available in the forum editor. Some other old-time or ancient looking typefaces might be nice as well. If the ones in current branding are to expensive to use this way, free ones with similar feel would still be nice.

I'm thinking they're rightly staking out "HeroQuest' as Gloranthan product/brand identity. It would however be very nice if it could still be "HQ" without too much linguistic torture. Hyper Quest? Hackable Quest? Hero(ic) Quine? Heros Quare? (Latin: "By what means Hero?" or "Why Hero?") I dunno, it's easy to get too cute.

I like Broddi with Harmony. I frequently have him point out the "And then next week we'll be at war." consequences of rash plans to PCs focused on immediate concerns. My Broddi carefully chooses when to use the violence option vs finding another way based on the long-term health & needs of the clan, and calls for the harder road that avoids escalation if it's practical to do so - conserving strength until the battle that must be fought arrives.