Jon Hunter

It would possibly be a sliding scale .... ones persons powerful; sorcerer another persons Demi-God.

imho the level of technology for Glorantha depends on what would destroy the suspension of disbelief for your group. This that tend to do that are Modern inventions retrofitted with primitive technologies Things that seem inconsistent with our perceptions of the technology level of the Glorantha Things that have obviously been changed just cause we can - id consider joerg's beetleskin hull's in that Things that just seem out of place Lots of those things are very personal to refs, players and groups due to taste, level of knowledge, preconceptions and previous gaming experience. So I really to think this is an area where "your glorantha may vary" is very well applied. What cannon should be probably is to take the the path of least offence and to be most vanilla, as not to force on to people gaming tables ideas which will jar. So if you want a flame thrower made of bellows spewing Greek fire, you may. But don't expect it in an official supplement any time soon. Seriously I think worry about lots of details put players don't give a hoot about. If Harrek turns up in longboat, triremes, or a galley. most of out players wouldn't care. Just as long as he doesn't role up in a Medi evil Caravel or steam powered iron clad.

Nice choices but significant price differentials on both, i'm currently going to be using Victix Carthaginians for my luanrs. 60 Hoplites, peltasts and med infantry all in one box.

Id take issue with this, Glorantha exists as game world. If the world definition damages the gaming experience it probably needs redesigning. Believability and suspension of disbelief are factors but only is a s much as how they effect the game. MGF( Maxiumum Game Fun) is the order of the day. There is also a balance to these things, and AD&D has always had issues around the depth of its game worlds, wide and large but lacking in depth and substance is my general opinion. Its often too abstract to be believable. Not the only method of warefare, but its the type of warfare which makes much more sense within a RPG environment. In an RPG you want a small defined combat where the players can be the main movers and shakers on there side of the conflict. Any world definition that makes the players bit characters in combats and conflict, for the sake of historical accuracy is to my mind fundamentally broken and not fit for purpose. There has to be flex in the setting to allow games to flourish. Glorantha is not historical phd project fro a few history buffs, its an active vibrant living game world. Its ability to suspend disbelief comes down to levels of expectation, which is based on the knowledge level of the audience, and also the expectation/intent of the audience. I still get annoyed by helms deep cavalry, I didn't feel robbed or notice gladiators inaccuracies, With all due respect I think you are different than the intended Glorantha target market on both counts, as you are much more highly informed in this area than most individuals (even gamers.) and also as you don't actively game your not as prone to see the need of occasional fudges to keep the game moving. Both make you more probe to see deviations between Glorantha and historical settings as more significant than others. Please don't think It means i think your positions and opinion invalid because of this, i just see that they come through a particular filter. To conclude my game needs Lunar military in sizes that PCs can interact with , fight, threaten, rescue. I don't care what or when these appeared in real world military history, my game needs them thus they exists within the game world. We have a world in which dinosaurs and humans co-exixts, Gods are real, there are talking animals, ducks that smoke cigars. We can cope with military units of a size and style which suits the game.

A few posts have gone live recently http://www.backtobalazar.com/using-ancient-miniatures-glorantha-review-gbp-dark-age-warriors/ http://www.backtobalazar.com/gloranthan-miniatures/ http://www.backtobalazar.com/tulina-pavis-npc/

My fav renaissance supplement. Never played or reffed, but just for inspiration and background.

I was wondering if it was working for you guys ?

As promised ... http://www.backtobalazar.com/using-ancient-miniatures-glorantha-review-gbp-dark-age-warriors/

Can you even say are we looking at less than 3 months, 3 -6 months, 6 months + ?

I'm having with some fun with historical miniatures for gloranthaat the moment, will be sticking a review of some up soon on www.backtobalazar.com. This thread has inspired.

As a note from the limited research i've done its considered that Alexander was way ahead of his time, and is the exception that period and not the rule. Though it seems the Assyrians, Persians and Egyptians also had some grasp of military logistics. It would seem if intended or not the different logistical strengths have had a significant effect on the military history of the different cultures, organised empires have had the ability launch large scale wars of invasion, tribal cultures are morel limited to raids, defensive wars and border skirmishes because they don't have the ability to keep large scale forces in the field for protracted periods. This definitley pans out when looking at the Lunars and Orlanthi in the third age, is this consistent across the rest of Glorantha?

Alexander was the earlier commander who was the exception i meant and is a good early example of logistics. Ok here you encounter my working definition of logistics, leaving off the land and leaving devastation isn't using effective logistics. Logistics as i'm referring to it separate logistic structures, and the existence of planned supply lines that enable army's to move fast and not devastate the surrounding population. The existence of Angus Farquilis answers my core question its a detail id either overlooked or more likely forgot. I'd just defined some lunar logistics stuff in Filicher for my games was just checking it fitted the setting in a moment of self doubt .

Broadly speaking it sounds like the Lunars have complex logistics structures more similar to the Romans than the usual earth bronze age arrangements ( with the odd exception.) That's how I read Griffin Mountain and how I have interpreted you answer, would you concur?

Hi, Have you got aNy stuff on logistics especially in terms of the lunar administration. Griffin mountain suggests lunar logistic capacity is significant. Does this bear out in a wider context? Jon

Another post, just some background I put together for my game. I built up a list of company sized mercenary units working through Holay. http://www.backtobalazar.com/mercenary-companies-holay/

No surprise you didn't actually agree . My counter point is than in RL economics you never budget for close to 100 efficiency, because it never happens. You budget for average efficiency, including the potential of catastrophic failure. (if you budget for it over a period you should have good chance to generate a surplus to survive it ). Therefore if you do anything to significantly mitigate catastrophic risk you significantly increase actual average productivity over a period. I do agree with Jeff that actually trying to work our how magic effects Gloratha by extrapolating effects of particular rune spells and battle magic spells is not a fruitful way of approaching the question, it has however been fun :).

Well Glorantha has 3 official RPG systems HQ, 13th Age and RQ. It also has various homebrews, mash ups and misappropriations of which i'm responsible for one. It also has various computer games and board games, and fantasy literature which all plug into the world. I would argue that non of these define Glorantha, ( not even 2nd edition RQ), what the different rules systems and platforms give us are ways of interacting with Glorantha to give us the gaming experience we prefer. I think there is a belief amongst some that RQ2 defines Glorantha, and they will attempt to create a hard definition of the game world by using those mechanics. I would agree with Jeff that its probably unwise to do this and creates constraints upon Glorantha that the rules set was never designed to do. ( I hope i didn't put words into Jeffs mouth here )

Most of that works been done http://www.backtobalazar.com/lunar-names-part-1/ If we do that, we loose a sense of distinction between the different Lunar naming conventions, it would be nice to have Pelorian, Dara Happen and Lodrilli working in subtley different ways.

Hi Jeff, I think you hit on an interesting point here which is the mechanics which different people use to define Glorantha. For some people Glorantha is defined by specific game mechanics, rules table or a piece of background which they latch onto, whether that be certain RB & WH rules, specific spell descriptions and formulations, or a cult percentage table from the back of cults of prax almost 40 (OMG!!) years ago. Its just the way some peoples minds work and they are detail thinkers. I prefer an approach that sees Glorantha as an entity that exists outside specific rules , and rules are systems and approximations that give us working models that allow us a consistent defined approach in how to work with Glorantha, but they do not and should not define it. However when you talking with someone with a differeng mindset, there is no harm in jumping inside their idiom for a while cheers Jon

So you seem to agree that over time magic will yield a higher average result, but not a higher theoretical maximum yield. If we agree on that. we agree that bless crop does have a significant effect upon effectiveness of farming.

I did some digging RQG doesn't have bronze chainmail, or any chain mail for that matter . I suppose the background issues here are the dichotomy of "Glorantha is different than the RW" and the push for bronze age realism within the setting.

Ok i.m sure this has been done to death before, but juts coming up to speed with discussions. Runequest has always had bronze chainmail in its armor lists etc, RW bronze was never made into chainmail and doesn't have the properties for it how is this reconciled? Giving Gloranthan bronze different properties than RW bronze? Writing chainmail out of your Glorantha? A bit of both? Making chain-mail an iron only armor type? Any of suggestions /accommodations? Cheers Jon

These are currently used in imperial Lunar names, source imperial, lunar handbook vol 2. Though pointed towards lunar Gods, aspects and Heros. I could use them pointed towards cities, houses, families , association and other Dara happen Instituations Lodrilli are most prone just to have one name of all the culture i've covered so far. Nicknames would be most common for titled names i think. I think i've got a workable set of personal names, just family names and titles that are looking difficult

You think its scaleable?

I had missed that, but still is very hard to scale up for the following reasons. It covers a very small percentage of Lunars in the top houses and clans, I dont think a random name generator can assume NPC's will be from those houses and clans. We don't have enough lunar clan/family names to create a list We don't have enough data to extrapolate a pattern or style On the matter of the three letter personal designators I was joking more than anything else but Jareen - eel doesn't quite work the same. Let alone longer names.