kaosin23

29 minutes ago, Scott A said:

Hello, I'm Scott from the blog! Glad to see it being referenced!

Pregnancy and birth are actually quite well supported in the corebook. Ernalda is, of course, a major deity of birth and reproduction, and gives her followers access the the rune spells Bless Pregnancy and Reproduce. Bless Pregnancy, in particular, is the "female adventurers can adventure while pregnant without worry" spell.  Reproduce, in turn, gives players control over when their PC conceives, and guarantees a healthy baby. Those two spells are probably among the most popular services that Earth temples provide, so I'd give PC get easy access to them. There are doubtless other cults and spells (rune or otherwise) related to the topic that aren't detailed in the book. It's a good topic for worldbuilding! I'd be very curious to learn what the Praxians do, for instance.

The childbirth rules in the back of the book are actually a pretty big abstraction, seemingly intended for clan and/or saga based play. The childbirth table is good if you want to leave things to chance, or keep them at a distance, but I would personally wouldn't use it without working out how players felt about it first.

Something important to note is that child-rearing is very, very different in a clan based society than it is in modern life. Clans are communalistic organizations based on strong family webs. Leaving a child to be raised by one's clan would be an unexceptional decision for a person called to adventure. Heck, the astute among you many have already noticed that Yanioth from Vasana's saga became a Ernalda priestess during the course of the sidebar adventures. She's got a baby tucked away somewhere, and it didn't slow her down!

In general, the whole issue of reproduction is very much subject to the rule of Maximum Game Fun, and should be handled with frank conversation around the table. Literally everyone has Very Strong Opinions about the subject,  but that's largely because it's hugely important and central to our psyches and societies. I recommend letting players engage with the bits they want to, and letting anything they don't want to engage with slide.

It just doesn't seem quite fair in some ways that the male adventurers get to spread it around with random rolls in the downtime tables, which is part of why I brought this up here. It's just that having a little more guidance might be nice, even if in the form of a sidebar stating part of what you've written above.

That said, I'm definitely interested in seeing how your blog goes, and I'll point my wife at it, too.

Thanks!

19 minutes ago, styopa said:

I'd love to see it too, but if I were a publisher I wouldn't touch those subjects with a 20' pole.

Why not? Monte Cook games handled it for Numenera in a very mature and respectable way, something Chaosium seems to understand. As important as family is being made out to be in the new Runequest, it seems like they've put themselves into a position where they have to address it. I really don't understand the reluctance nowadays. During the 80s, sure, but not now.

The downtime rules mention male adventurers potentially having children by wives and others they may have had contact with if they wish.

However, I have not been able to find anything on female adventurers having children. Considering that a requirement of becoming an Ernaldan priestess is to give birth to a healthy child, this seems to be a major oversight.

Are there any guidelines for pregnancy for female adventurers?

(Wife is playing an Ernaldan with aspirations in a game I'm running, so this might be important).

Thanks!