Ultor

It's the difference between a spell lasting a week and 2 seasons. Or, for sorcerers with not much Free INT, it's the difference between 20 minutes and 6 hours - which is extremely important if you're about to enter that EWF tomb and don't know how long you'll be in there, and feel a few points of Ward Against Weapons could be useful. I'd say yes.

Again, I'm worried that this means we should expect most of the wandering philosophers of Sartar to be students of Fire/Sky, because incentives matter, even in a mythic world. That just doesn't seem right to me. ETA: One way to rationalize this would be to have LM philosopher-sages be regarded as Stargazers or something, and insist they take Celestial Lore. I can just about see that working.

I have a rough draft of the rules that I need to discuss with my players and then playtest. I'll post them here if they seem to work once we've knocked the rough edges off.

The small trouble with this is that it requires a school/grimoire that teaches the Summon technique and the Fire rune. LM does teach Enhance INT, but starting LM sorcerers don't have access to either that technique or rune, so they need to seek out teachers or grimoires. You can handwave this away by saying every LM temple has a copy of the Torvald Fragments that you can study to learn those secrets, or you can say that only a few masters exist who teach LM cultists these secrets and make finding one an adventure in itself. Lunar sorcerers are explicitly referenced as having access to Fire rune sorcery. We can assume that many Malkioni will take the Fire rune as their beginning elemental rune for precisely this reason. So I have a small issue with this spell, which is so essential, funneling sorcery towards Fire rune spells. It's for this reason that I'm looking at replacing Free INT with a version of Sandy's Presence rules.

I'd *completely* missed this. Thanks! Given our Vingan Wind Lady summons sylphs on a regular basis, there's bound to be a lot of wind around. Sureshot sure becomes attractive then.

Yes, our new PC Foundchild cultist started at 85% and said he just didn't see the point of wasting Rune Points on Sureshot uses. The spell needs rethinking for the higher-powered RQG.

I play it as Summon (Cult Spirit) - i.e. a different spell is required for each type of cult spirit, including elementals. So there could be Summon Sylph, Summon Wyter, Summon Temple Ghost and so on all available to the same cult. Foundchild cultists would have different Summon Totem Spirits according to their hunt beasts and so on.

As an aside on Reputation, I allow it to be augmented with Orate, Intimidate, Fast Talk, or Charm. My inspiration for this was the character of Chaucer in A Knight's Tale.

In other words, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." What would be the correct cult for the precept, "Won't get fooled again!," I wonder.

A medium sized Shade is particularly effective. It's probably going to win its POW v POW fearshock attack (3d6+6 vs 3d6) and thereby stands a chance of instantly killing even rune levels, and at least taking them out of the combat. The sorcerer in the party I GM has a POW 20 Shade and it has made challenging encounters much easier. Throw in 2 or 3 of them and it's a game changer.

This is excellent. It's going to be very helpful for generating NPCs.

Arkat (Ralian sects, Stygian, and True Arkat), Rokarism, Mostal, and (why the heck not) Indlas Somer

It seems to me that one way to increase the value of a special smashing attack is to say that if it hits the head, it automatically counts as a subduing attack as per the Rune Fixes additions. And/or give the successful crusher a free immediate Knockback attempt as per p. 224. This might make staff-wielding Little Johns a bit more effective.

I have a long-term plan to place The Caverns of Thracia by the great Jennell Jacquays in Glorantha. The idea is that the Godlearner Thanrax the Fair founded a port near Sog's Ruins called Thanracia, which was cut off by the Closing and then the descendants of the God-Learners turned to Thanatar worship (instead of Thanatos). Add in an undead Dragonewt priest and a pissed-off Minotaur lord and you have something Gloranthan. I have a suspicion that the original version might have been written for RQ, as a lot of JJ's early Dungeoneer scenarios were before conversion to DnD, but have no evidence to back that up.

I really like the Dragonewt Rune mechanics. I worry that the cult itself is a bit too Immanent Mastery-ish in that it is centered around transforming oneself temporarily into a dragon, which I don't think is what the EWF was all about - they seemed to be about achieving draconic consciousness. I'm giving the dragonfriend in my campaign access to Dragonewt magic as she awakens new stages of draconic consciousness, but have been playing that by ear rather than with any dedicated rules. I'll be interested to see you experiences with this in play.

Agreed. We've been playing it as max special damage and it's led to insta-death of enemies on several occasions. The players haven't complained, but the Humakti will be a bit cross if it happens to him. I'm almost certainly going to House Rule it to max damage and rolled special.

I was just rereading Plato's Republic Books VIII and IX (the long winter nights just fly by...) and was struck by the section in IX about the soul as being in tension between the monster and the man (there's a third element, the lion, but let's ignore that for these purposes). This sounds like beast and man runes to me. It made me think that Western Philosophers could be all about perfecting one element of these dual powers to the detriment of the other, which is how Plato defines the just man. As my campaign has a need for these right now, I am taking Plato as my guide. The Hrestoli will be all about perfecting the man part of man/beast (which seems to fit with the Guide), the Rokari will be all about perfecting harmony over disorder (they really don't like people rocking the boat), and Ashara/Caselain will be all about Movement. This gives me runes to base the sorceries around and perhaps the basis for Vows if I'm going to introduce that mechanic into sorcery.

Ave atque vale, great Shaman. Your imagination has taken me places I'd never have dreamed of. I'll break out the Powzie! in your honor tonight.

If only Don Turnbull were still around to devise a RQ-based Monstermark System. Hours of mathematical fun for all the family.