Jon Hunter

I think its an interesting questions where the lines of delineation fall with the female roles between the Grazelanders and Verdef, With the men its quite simple grazelanders - horses, war, fighting, sun gods. verdef - farming, trades, making, growing, other animals. I have the Grazelander women as being hands off agriculture and manual labour, but responsible for healing, horses, raising children, teaching, knowledge and mysticism

Cheers, I used a good few , fired off lots of ideas too.

I noted that but it only works if your Greg of Jeff trying to pull out 4 or 5 individuals from a single family over a few hundred years. If you want a system that works widely it falls down especially if your pre clan name elements are all 3 characters names. Just not scalable so I filed that as a way a single clan does it. I've opted for the system outlines in Imperial handbook 2 for Imperial Lunar names, though I may like a 'from Clan' or 'from place' style to complement the God based Style laid out there. Ok will look into that more, I do have a distinct lists of Dara Happen and Carmanian forenames so may be do able. Easy to do, but I have no distinct list of Darjiinians names as yet. Pelandan names exists as a distinct list and currently have little in the way of second names/titles/epithet/family names. Mid for mid level and lower level Dara Happen names i think something that suggests from <city/town/village> member of <organisation/family> servant of <organisation/family> This would be used less frequently with Pelandans, with some silly nicknames thrown in.

First question from me; What ideas do people have on how we can distinguish the 2nd name element of Pelorian, Carmanaina and Harra happen names from the ubiquitous Runequest Nickname?

After creating the Glorantha random name generator http://www.backtobalazar.com/glorantha-name-generator/ I'm now trying to populate it with Good useful data from a wide range of key Gloranthan Cultures. Which will try to achieve the following things Create and document varied societies different approach to naming Create distinct feels for different cultures Be believable within a gaming setting Build on whats go on before Add something new and useful Fire players and ref imagination Isn't adverse to occasional and appropriate humor. I will have lots of questions, there will be places where I fall over on inspiration and there will be places where people think they will extrapolate data differently than I would. So I thought a thread where we could discuss and debate about Gloranthan Names could be worthwhile. Cheers Jon

Ok ive added a Gloranthan name generator, which tries to create realistic NPC(or PC names via culture) http://www.backtobalazar.com/glorantha-name-generator/ i've got Balazaring Satarite Grazelanders Imperial Lunar Dara Happen Peldaran/ Pelorian Ready as yet. I have kinda struck out on Grazelander female honour names though so if people have any suggestions.... I would be grateful.

I have picked up there has been a bit of thing about elmal/yelmalio over the years Out of interest where has this been left? What i'm picking up is that Yelmalio seems to be the fore and Elmal if mentioned at all is being pushed to the background?

Jeff i now understand you reticence in the roman/celt thing for the lunar/orlanthi situation a little more. However it does leave us with an analogory that would be meaningful to very few people, and with few pivots in popular culture. I consider myself of having some interest in ancient history and with a very good understanding of the the culture and situation of the old testament , and I couldn't make practical use the comparison with the Persian empire. The lunar Rome illustration still works for a quick introduction to players for me for a number of reasons; It establishes the game in antiquity both are the major powers of the day both are aggressively expansionist both have shown the ability to assimilate surrounding cultures the roman-greek thing and Lunar-Dara Happen thing have similarities both tie the religion and the Empire Together players generally know and understand these facts about the roman empire some common touch points in popular culture I can see why the British Celtic thing doesn't work well for the reasons you outlined above , but again i find the General Celt/Orlanthi thing does work for a number of reasons some similar. It again establishes the game in antiquity. The celts were varied people with significant variation Tribal people with petty kings Both Celts and Orlanthi have varying technical and social levels Complex loyalties that can work for or against the lunars there is some understanding of these traits with most gamers, again some touch points in popular culture so for me comparisons to the Gauls, Iberian, Thraican and alpine celts, work better than british celts

Ok got this one to add to the mix now http://www.backtobalazar.com/glorantha-name-generator/

Hi All, I've reworked on old spreadsheet into an online tool to help with city and culture building. Other datasets can be added easily so if you want to add another culture just let me know. http://www.backtobalazar.com/glorantha-fantasy-world-city-tool/

http://www.backtobalazar.com/personal-horror-glorantha/

I'd agree with that. Perhaps where personal horror games see the players on a slippery slope ,which they will eventually slide down to damnation. Glorantha offers a more upbeat vibe where the its is a situation where then players can triumph over personal horror.

I'd describe CoC as a classic horror game looking at the evil without. Personal horror tends to look at the evil within. I think Arkat is a personal horror story, I also think Argrath could become on as well, Stormbullites are made for personal horror stories of people who fight chaos who are always in danger of becoming what they hate. I think its there as an element which could explored within Glorantha, but Glorantha is a lot wider and has many more themes running through.

OK a question id be interested in peoples opinions on; Is personal horror a glorathan theme?

I like the variation in system, but i think one system to run all possibilities within rune magic, and let the distinctions of runelord/priest/shaman be run by the background plot characterisation and story. http://www.backtobalazar.com/wodglorantha-divine-intervention-rules/ one thing i'm very happy with and how it can be extended into divine ritual magic.

I like the old system too it just doesn't fit with the storyteller rules dynamic, and it would be false to try insert that dynamic into of storyteller rules. I don't think I am, what i'm doing is making common rune spells accessible by gaining runic associations with magic, spirit, truth and mastery runes. Thus if you want access to general magic you character looks to develop ties to generalist runes. So we can keep the Runelord/rune priest split by people who develop generalist rune magic powers and those who only concentrate on cult specific rune powers, but there is only system and mechanic in play. As i've written and articulated i'm happy with associated spells being difficult or expensive to cast. If players get there dicepool from rune points spent only if they have no runic association for the spells that fine, more expensive, higher chance of failure , weaker effects all works for me. Its just creating the mechanic for gaining access to the spells.

OK looking at building characters with different levels of experience in WOD:Glorantha. http://www.backtobalazar.com/creating-experienced-player-characters-wodglorantha/

Hi Guys, I'm second guessing some design decisions i made in the Rune magic system for WOD:Glorantha and want to knock round options and see what other people think. Here are some facts about system design that i don't want to change. The storytellers system has one core mechanic which works for just about everything, and differences in game play are about difference uses of that one mechanic, not different mechanics for different character types. Runelords & Runepriests should be working off the same rules and differences should be how those rules apply in the game world. I want to keep the cultural distinction between rune lords & rune priests with WOD:Glorantha. In the first draft of the system Cult specific rune spells come from association with your Gods runes Common rune spells came from association with generic runes such as magic, spirit and truth The distinction between Runelords and Priests was a mix of those who built up the generic rune associations to serve the flock ( priests) and those who focused on cult runes and become avatars of there Gods (Runelords) Apart from, the simple character choice distinction in rune association, there are no rule differences or nuances between the two roles. This works very well for cult and generic runespells, but has no workable mechanism of associated cult spells Runespells are currently cast by using you rating in the relevant rune plus the amount of Runepoints you wish to spend on the spell. Upon looking at RQG, your common rune magic spells are powered by your cult runes. This is effective and means that priestess get access to common spells easily It does reflect thew power of the gods The associated spells system works as most people have around 50% ratings in the runes for non cult spells Thoughts of moving towards the RQG system If I adopt this system it shatters the distinction between rune lords and priests in a one system It still doesn't give me a decent system for associated cult spells Does this make any sense to anyone else and am i just talking riddles to myself ?

I've still got them in griffin mountain ..... well Halycon arrested by the coders and Marusa in hiding

The guide would indicate later 1624... i bumped into another source that suggest 1625..

Hi All, Do we have a precise date for the fall of New Pavis? I have references for years of 1624/1625, can anyone give in a definitive date ? jon

OK playing with stats now, one new post and two updates to old posts. http://www.backtobalazar.com/trollkin-wod-glorantha-stats/ http://www.backtobalazar.com/lan-stormson/ http://www.backtobalazar.com/thrax-halfface/

http://www.backtobalazar.com/using-wodglorantha-stats-runequest/

The character definition system would have to be standard, the techniques on how you arrive at that definition could alter drastically.

OK some days you have crazy ideas and this may be one of them. Seeing as we have many version of RQ's to choose from , a YGMV mentality, a community of moders and hackers could it be possible to create runequest as a configurable rules system ? Certain elements would have to remain for it to remain Runequest and published materials and adventures to work, other elements could be built on a mix and match. Elements which I think can change radically without changing the core nature of the system are Character Creation Experience Combat Are there other parts of the system that could be easily modulated, and other parts don't require to interact with?