Jon Hunter

OK because i am a sado and have nothing better to do on a Friday night . I've made some changes to the blog. The first is i've started to list synopsis of the posts rather than the full posts on the main page and categories. The second is that when they area series of posts i've order them in the order they should be read in not the reverse order of how they were written. The aim of both is to ease reading and browsing. The question is before i go do all 100 posts, does it work and does it make things easier ?

HI All, I was just wondering if anyone aware of gloranthan colloquialisms, either published or stuffs that has dropped into you games over time? I just wrote that Balazaring citadel guard was 'as happy as pig in muck' and it kinda worked, but its a northern english phrase which especially works in the context of Balazaring citadels. Anyone got anything 100% Gloranthan?

Was he a chef caught in the preparation of orange sauce :)?

Hi all, Sorry about the separate post for this, but just put together an article on writing NPC's for Glorantha and differs from the usual stuff. http://www.backtobalazar.com/creating-interesting-believable-npcs-glorantha/ Enjoy Jon

cheers Dave plenty enough to suggest i havent deviated far from the norm.

OK finished up Cyriel section with two new posts, http://www.backtobalazar.com/cyriels-prostitutes/ http://www.backtobalazar.com/plot-hooks-cyriels-operation/ This stuff is a little grim, but plots can sometimes go that way. Inspiration came from the film https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Whistleblower, and that's the mood i'm aiming at. If this stuff wont make your players angry don't use it. The whole Cyriel Section now fits together like this http://www.backtobalazar.com/cyriel-summary/ http://www.backtobalazar.com/cyriel-endelkar/ http://www.backtobalazar.com/cyriels-traders-character-write-ups/ http://www.backtobalazar.com/cyriels-guards-mercenaries-character-details/ http://www.backtobalazar.com/cyriels-prostitutes/ http://www.backtobalazar.com/cyriels-endelkars-business-interests/ http://www.backtobalazar.com/plot-hooks-cyriels-operation/

Thats what i was after ... its going to be a bit ick, but its a plot.

The point I think me Joerg agreed on was not that the cults were more magical but the commitment of its members to the cult will probably higher. If you chose obscure and difficult religions you religious enthusiasm is probably higher. For the more sociably normal, vanilla and acceptable religions that's where you are likely to get ratio's closer to 1 in 100. I never encountered a Humakti century stated up or encountered. I see them as a cult or warriors as proposed to soldiers. With a large warband being 30. Well we are allowed to differ in opinion without calling each other outside to duel .... I'd agree about Uleria i could see a better ratio in worshippers there, Minlister id see devoted worshippers as rare and would expect to see him worshipped as a secondary God by most worshippers, in pantheon worship, or in rites associated to other gods. I'd also be very suprised to ever meet a worshipper beyond probably with the rank pf acolyte/devotee due to the nature of the cult. No one was saying they all worshippers would be of the same (high) level, just that the 1 to 100 ratio works across the population as a whole, and for vanilla cults, but as cults get more specialised the ratios will change, and lets not get too inflexible with it.

Of course they haven't, but when the costs of there earned/free magic is 500 years earning somethings not right. Even if they haven't paid cash it still has a value.

ha ha bloody ha ....

OK spirits and possession .... a few questions are spirits ever able to possesses more than one individual at a time? Can passion spirits birth other passion spirits?

I'm not a great quoter of Jeff so what i'm saying is no way canonical but ........ You are looking for answers in a scientific manner incompatible with the world. To the players the mundane Gloranthan world functions in reasonably similar ways to ours, time passes, things fall down, blood pumps, forces are opposed, liquids displaced etc However those events are as much driven by magical forces as biological, physical and chemical Also there isn't a comprehensive scientific framework to understand and explain this, and the detailed questions that RW science has raised in the last 300 years haven't been asked by anyone in Glorantha ever. For example; Whether runes work in a similar way as elements in the RW as particles making up all kinds of matter is irrelevant , because no one in Glorantha would be aware that matter is made up of smaller particles.

Its quite clear that most of the world off Glorantha functions with cause and effect in a way similar to ours when nothing different is noted, for ease of game play if not anything else. What I think is consensus is that the reasons for the functionality are different. Questions about the charge mass of Glorantha atoms are redundant because Glorantha does not have the concept of sub atomic particles and forces. Concern about those question is outside the scope of the Gloranthan Universe. If runes are the driving force that defines the Gloranthan universe ( and I believe they are), to try and substitute them into a modern chemical or physical methodology is wrong not because it is unscientific, but because it is too scientific. Within Glorantha I would not even consider the framework of atomic particles(modern or rune based) as relevant.

All of which is completely believable, but so is a minor temple with one priest, a devotee or two and 10 - 20 initiates in the local area. Either would work for a game, and what id use to determine which is the MGF rule. If i had a player who was BG initiate id probably play it that way, because its believable, it makes sense and its ads to player fun.

I think we were both stating an opinions, but are trying to dig a little into the nature of Glorantha, and how it differs from our world. YGMV means feel free to deviate but there will be standard approaches and opinions to the way Glorantha works. In my games ducks never seem to get a mention (i've not uninvented them, they just get swept under the carpet) but i'm very happy to admit my games vary from the standard Glorantha approach in the way. Yes they did, but even the more scientific ones believe some odd stuff. To quote Hippocrates "A physician without a knowledge of Astrology has no right to call himself a physician." The scientific worldview and paradigm we have today is about 300 years old and often misapplied to historical settings, let alone mythical ones.

I'm prone to agree with Joerg here, the 1 to 100 numbers is very good as regards general population and for large and popular cults, but as cults get smaller and have higher intensity of worship that ratio may change significantly, 1 to 20 or 30 for marital groups, 1 to 10 for specialist cults ( includes Lhankor Myh, Chalana Arroy) and even up to 1 to 3 or 5 for extreme cults such as Vivamort. The reason for this is that the ratio is mainly determined by how many people have the desire to attain the status who realistically have the ability and drive to do so. The strict global 1 in 100 i believed is is modeled from the real world, where to be frank the real tangible benefit of magic and divine providence is at best hard to quantify, and worst none existent. In Glorantha the tangible effects of magic means that magic people not only generate enough extra value to contribute significantly to society themselves, but will increase the overall contribution of other people in the community. Also most can and will sustain themselves, as priests of obscure cults also fulfill roles as healers, traders, craftsmen and sages. The limit is not ability for the society to support magic people, but is the number of individuals with the desire and capability to make the Gods that large a part of there life. When people choose obscure and offbeat Gods we will find a group of people that have self selected to be more prone to desire & attain spiritually. So for your 55 Babestor Gor cultists in the wastes it would be very likely to see at least one priest or lord and a couple of devotees, in fact it be very hard for the 55 initiates to function without them.

A those extra obstacles and problems or just different explanations to events that we would explain by science. I'd thought about disease as initially thought about all of the disease spirits as well as natural disease, but then rethought, disease spirits is the main way disease operates in Glorantha, illness spread by micro bacteria and viruses just doesn't exist in Glorantha. Magical problems are not always on top off mundane or scientific problems, often they are alternatives to them.

Please show me a good range of publish stats for human characters with no spells ? I am Try looking through actual characters and encounters that were published in supplements with no spells. the picking there are very very thin and its not the norm. The norm is; Very weak and poor characters will have 1-5 points of battle magic Mid level encounters will have 5 to 8 points of battle magic Warriors and trained soldiers will have 9 -12 points Magically Experienced Characters will have very many. I'm not sure why you are arguing that magic and spells is not pervasive in Glorantha, its one of things things that defined Glorantha and Runequest and differentiated it from other systems.

I'm not sure where you got Pavis from i was working off the RQ2 rulebook, which was as vanilla as RQ2 got. See example stats across a wide range of everyday folk stated for RQ2 - Griffin Mounatin, Pavis, Bordleands and Sun country as sources. Average balazaring hunter: Circa 7 pts of battle magic - circa 6,000 Lunars worth of spells Balazaring Citadel warrior: 8pts battle magic - circa 7,000 Lunars worth of spells Lunar Peltast (Griffin Mountain) : 13 pts battle magic - circa 10,000 Lunars worth of spells Newtling - 11pts battle magic -circa 9000L of spells Sun Dome Templar - 12pts of battle magic, circa 10,000 lunars worth of spells Sun Dome Militia - 2pts of battle magic - 1500 - 2000 L of spells Trollkin 1- 5pts of battle magic - circa 1800 L of spells Standard Praxian Nomads - 4 -6 pts of battle magic, 2000 - 4000L worth of spells Balazaring Baboons - 8 -12pts of battle magic, 6000 - 10,000 L worth of spells Pavis Street Gang - 4 - 11 pts of battle magic, 7000+ L worth of spells Trollkin watch in Pavis - 7pts of battle magic 5000+ L worth of spells Sundome militia will be closest to what you means as a peasant. But when worker trollkin are wandering round with with 500L of magic, its suggest the two economic systems aren't joined up. My gut feel is that you were probably closer to right first time. If we are tying stuff into older price lists and approaches But when the RQG comes out we may see a complete reworking of training and spell costs, and the new figures would make much more sense. I don't like the old RQ2 stuff and think its grossly out of date in terms of costs for spells and training. It belongs to roleplaying in the 70's and early 80's, But until we have something different we need to try to make things work with it.

There will be many economic scales but they will sensible, related and rational. What i think we have here is the desire to reflect real bronze age economics with your good self and the old RQ2 economic system, which was designed to give adventures something to spend there money on after bringing ridiculous amounts of gold out of the ground after doing a dungeon bash. I don't think either are right for Glorantha with hows its matured and grown over the years, but i'm very clear that the two scales cannot sensibly coexist within the same game world. Trying to reconcile the two at the moment we would see peasants generating 10 silvers a year of worth, but wandering round with 1000 lunars plus of battle magic, just not feasible. Maybe the new runequest will reset the system a little.

At that point i think you out of the step with one of the main themes of Glorantha which is the common availability of magic, and its ubiquitous nature. I've also never seen Glorantha as place where the players are a class of adventures separate and distinct from the general population. they are a subset of that population and they may have the edge, but the cultural tie in is part of the game world. Also I cant find any published examples of stats for sentient creatures in Glorantha that don't have access to magic.

On of the reasons im suggesting adding real world bronze age economics on top of Glorantha is that it doesn't work. Every human NPC i have seen stated for Glorantha has access to magic, here area few example of stats pulled from supplements of RQ2 and RQ3; Average balazaring hunter: Circa 7 pts of battle magic - circa 6,000 Lunars worth of spells Balazaring Citadel warrior: 8pts battle magic - circa 7,000 Lunars worth of spells Lunar Peltast (Griffin Mountain) : 13 pts battle magic - circa 10,000 Lunars worth of spells Newtling - 11pts battle magic -circa 9000L of spells Sun Dome Templar - 12pts of battle magic, circa 10,000 lunars worth of spells Sun Dome Militia - 2pts of battle magic - 2000 L of spells Trollkin 1- 5pts of battle magic - circa 1800 L of spells Standard Praxian Nomads - 4 -6 pts of battle magic, 2000 - 4000L worth of spells Balazaring Baboons - 8 -12pts of battle magic, 6000 - 10,000 L worth of spells Pavis Street Gang - 4 - 11 pts of battle magic, 7000+ L worth of spells Trollkin watch in Pavis - 7pts of battle magic 5000+ L worth of spells from these published examples I think its safe to say in Glorantha almost everyone has access to magic

I think its the common place healers in Glorantha that make the difference, the buff spells for everyday items such as plowsharp, craft item, etc, will give limited but not insignificant effects. Not game changing but an extra 10 -15% of skills roles 3 or more times a day can affect a persons productivity. However instant spells such as heal 2, repair and ignite go along way to making life so much easier, and do not require an initiate of required cult. Heal 2 not only stops blood loss, but also would stop infection, resets minor breaks and massively shortens healing times, i think this one spell alone changes the nature of the world.

Not when the worth of years labour is 20 silvers... Sill doesn't add up, the worth of commander yearly, salary is not half a week of a trainers time. A legion commander should not be expected to pay 7 1/2 years salary to learn a battle magic spell. I get the logic but the scales wrong. It would lead to trainers and instructors being paid 40 times what a imperial commanders is. A spell trainers are heading to 300 times the net worth. First coins are and have been part of Glorantha from the start, its one of reasons i don't think its a Bronze Age world in the strict sense of the term. The second here is we are looking at worth given, not the coins which are used for doing it. A provincial soldiers pay would be 3 clacks a week, what is that in terms of beers ???? This isnt 'meant to say Martin has this wrong , just that within Glorantha there a current two distinct economic scales and I don't think they have been reconciled yet.

Something i have not read before here is a real deep dig into how a world as magical as Glorantha would effect an economic and social model. So to start a discussion on it. There are three types of magic we should think about; Common - Battle magic as described in the rules and what I assume to be non adventurous equivalents (i've always assumed they exist just aren't relevant to game play ) which will is used by all, quick to replenish and will have a significant boosts on day to day craftsmen productivity, farming yields, livestock health. Rune - Rune magic, rare powerful magic possessed in some aspect by many but difficult to replenish and reserved for special or serious occasions by most. Used carelessly by only the rich or powerful. Ritual - Community Rituals that both make the world work, but also protect, and positively boost the fertility, longevity and productivity of a people group. Performed in yearly cycles or in extreme times of need. These should have the following effects; Increase productivity - Meaning the following things are possible - goods would be relatively cheap, more free time for individuals, abundance of food, better education for most, more inventive and creative societies Decrease in child mortality - the following are possible - massive population booms, smaller family sizes Increased life expectancy - increased knowledge and wisdom within communities, greater generational conflict, Increased capabilities - Ability to achieve things that only much later societies would have developed on earth Also there is the counterpoints that; Magic makes the threats of the world Greater Opponents and foes usually have the same magical abilities Increased growth rates mean societies acquire critical masses where they implode, have a revolution, split, schism, or in other ways self immolate much quicker. This could manifest itself in these areas; societies will be bigger and support a greater population at a similar time in earths history Building crafts and magical technologies will surpass earths abilities in similar timescales societies will have the ability to be more structured and control orientated rate of growth will be faster rate of decline will be faster chance of cataclysmic event are higher ability recover is greater Goods are cheaper than relative to earth Nowhere near a finished article but enough maybe to start a discussion. Any other thoughts?