simonh

Most Gloranthans absolutely believe that they have a personal existence after death, and have evidence to back that up. Their ancestors are in the afterlife and contactable during some cult ceremonies or on heroquest. I think I can say that this is a 'true thing' about Glorantha. However.... Ilumination is the realisation that all personal existence is an illusion. Not just in death, but right now as well. 'You' as a conscious persistent self don't matter and are not real at a cosmic level. You become aware that the common conception of these things is a fantasy and none of it matters. The thing is, it depends how you experience this revelation. If you're just rudely thrust into this realisation with no preparation, it can be utterly devastating and many unprepared Illuminates just go mad. To those with a better grasp of philosophy and having under gone preparatory training and meditation to distance themselves from personal entanglements and petty concerns, often they are able transition into the enlightened state without mentally falling off a cliff. Transcendence isn't some sort of salvation of the personal self for eternity. You need to stop worrying about what happens to 'the person'. The personal self is scorched away by transcendence, so personal oblivion is a necessary part of the process. That's why Illuminates don't care about Chaos. Fearing destruction by Chaos is something the muggles trapped in the eternal torture of death and rebirth worry about. Illuminates have been freed form all of that. It;s not a bad thing, it's cosmic liberation.

I think in RQG the assumption is that your character will spend the rest of their time doing their jobs. Characters have careers now that are what they do, they get an income from it, maintain a standard of living in the community, may manage a household, and generally are also members of a cult with obligations. I think the seasonal training and research options in the Between Adventures chapter are during spare time while the character is also doing their regular thing, rather than the exclusive 8 hours a day, 7 days a week dedicated practice as assumed in RQ2/3.

It's great to see that we'll get some cult info and spells for some of the elder races, that's fantastic and a dramatic boost in usefulness over any previous RQ bestiary.

Is it though? If you know for a fact that personal identity, for anyone, is not real and that the only thing that matters is transcendence and the only path to that is through illumination, then what harm are you doing? What does it matter? Also I'm not entirely sure that being consumed by the bat is especially terrible, from the perspective of an Illuminated being. We're all just shadows and masks anyway.

Sorry, I didn't mean to squash and lines of thought. It's complicated Illumination is not transcendence, but it is a kind of awareness of the relationship between the personal self, the cosmos and of the possibility of transcendence. It's one step on that path. For those still attached to their personal existence this is kind of potentially disastrous though, because if they die before transcending, they're gone. Caring about that too much or trying to forestall it can lead Illuminates down dark paths though. The thing is there are 'illuminates' out there that have become immortals, so they are still around even though they might at one time or other have seemed to die, but for them death isn't the same thing as for us plebs. I think these terms in their common usage just don't really capture the nuances of what is going on with these beings. I suspect becoming an Immortal is another step, or perhapse one possible path towards transcendence. Or maybe it's a blind alley? Who knows.

It does anyway, just not a distribution tied to the standard deviation.

Greg has said that Illuminates are not contactable after death and do not have an afterlife. It's possible that they may become immortal and therefore not die and stay contactable, and Lunar deities such as the Seven Mothers probably fall into this category, but I've been there at many conventions and in many discussions on this and he was quite clear on it. If your Illuminated character dies, they are gone and that's it. As we have discussed there are many forms of 'awakened consciousness', and Nysalorian illumination is just one, and this may not apply to all forms, but t's the one I'll focus on. I think what Greg's talking about - and this is just my understanding - is that Nysalorian Illuminations includes a realisation of the illusory nature of the personal self, similar in some ways to some beliefs in Budhism. It follows then that if the Illuminate dies, there is no personal self to continue. That doesn't mean that what they were ceases to exist though, any more than that their physical body disappears on death. They may have spiritual components that continue to exist, but they know that these are not 'them' in a personal sense even in the way that a ghost of your non-illuminated ancestor presents itself as being 'them'. These spiritual components might even still be mistaken for that person by others. However for the Illuminate, their Illuminated state makes them immediately and deeply aware that they will not have a personal existence beyond death. Simon Hibbs

You don't have to have creature stats to play the game, you can create as many human NPCs as you like and in fact fighting Lunars, Lunar sympathisers and collaborators, or bandits or Praxian raiders and such is a staple of Runequest. If you do pick up a scenario pack, or one of the many RQ scenarios available free online (Google Runequest Scenario, you'll get loads) on various sites, you can run them fine since NPC and monster stat blocks are usable with what you have in the core book. You might be missing some spell descriptions, but that's about it. If you're a GM and not just a player, yes you'll probably want more material just as with many RPGs. If you want a set of rules, characters and a scenario in one book, cool. Pick up the Quickstart - it's just what you need.

Is it really not playable with just the core book? I'm sorry but the suggestion that this is not a playable game is patently absurd.

I vaguely remember some of the SRs being off, but it was a long time ago.

OK, but how does being an expert in Illusion and deception help you clear your mind and become more keenly focused on the Truth? Shouldn't knowledge of the power of Truth help you do that? It would be a bit weird if being a master illusionist made you a clearer and more logical thinker. Maybe it should be Command Truth, but it seems clear to me that Truth should be in there.

It's not verb-noun Dispelling Truth. It's using power over Truth to Dispel something. I agree it's arguable.

I think pretty much all of them. I'm sure the extended example in RQ3 had errata.

Seconded. One of the risks of a long combat example is it getting out of sync with the rules text, especially as revisions, clarifications and typos pour in during the gap between publishing the PDF and the print edition. How many games have been burned by this sort of problem? An example on the web site can be perpetually updated to the latest version and interpretation of the rules, and expanded to cover edge cases that come up long after the publication of the rules. I really think that's the way to go.

I doubt you'll get official permission from Chaosium to do that, because they probably have no way to check that it's accurate and any kind of even implied official endorsement opens them to legal risk. You would probably be best off contacting their licensee in Japan.

Except the combat tables, so you couldn't actually fight anything, per my little jibe. In first edition, anyway.

If you’re going to put ‘disarm’ on its own row, we should probably put disengagement, knockback, every runic ability, each cult write up, every career, each homeland, every skill, rune spell, spirit spell, sorcery spell, shamanic power and goodness knows what else that’s in RQG and not in RQ2 on its own row as well.

If people are being paid to do a job then what you're talking about is a professional publication which really is outside the scope of a fanzine. Proper commercial licensing terms are really a different thing.

That's good to hear. As a viewer it seems to be a sweet spot. I'm quite happy to watch some stuff over that, but if it is feasible to break it down to that level it's a lot easier to digest.

It's not weaker, this doesn't affect it's damage bonus or ability to use it's strength to exert physical force, it's just means being very bulky is an obstacle to fine manipulation and agility based tasks, which seems reasonable.

Heal Wound is Common rune magic, so pretty much any theist character with at least one Rune Point can cast it.

Cults of Terror blew my teenage mind back in the 80s. It's hard to imagine anything nowadays having the same effect with everyone growing up on Game of Thrones and such.

A fun fanzine full of quirky rules options, spells, scenarios, monsters and stuff would be great.

Sounds good, but that many rounds is forever in a combat. I don’t think I’ve ever gained out a fight much longer than ten combat rounds, and the average is significantly less than that.

Interesting idea, but I don’t think recently deceased ghosts should be significantly weakened like that. I’d want them to be pumped up and mad as hell.