simonh

1 hour ago, Bren said:

Sometimes spirit combat does physical damage.

Hit Point Damage
When suffering a special or critical attack in spirit combat,
an embodied target (such as a human) takes actual physical
damage to their hit points equal to the number of D6s rolled
for the attack’s damage. Thus, 1D6+3 points of spirit combat
damage will inflict 1 hit point of physical damage. RQiG p 369

You’d have to be in spirit combat with an embodied living being though, and it’s hard to imagine a circumstance in which a Chalana Arroy worshiper would be in that position. However yes I suppose in that case they would have to abstain.

1 hour ago, Dragon said:

Indeed, 'removes the consequences' can be interpreted as either the baby was removed from the world or removed from the womb - let's say magically transported outside the victim's body. At that point, established that it is Chaotic because Cure Chaos Wound would not have worked otherwise, the Chalana Arroy is under no requirement to protect a Chaotic living thing. A bystander could stomp on it, or simply let it starve. I doubt the Chalana Arroy should do the former.

I feel the interpretation should be left to the GM who understands the sensitivity of their players.

I think from the perspective of the characters the CA healer has a cool moment and the problem just goes away, otherwise it detracts somewhat from the peace and harmony vibe, but sure.

Nice catch on Natyrsa Phil. The stuff schisms are made of, but there's lots of narrative potential in that.

1 hour ago, Dragon said:

"The spell also completely cures the victim of broo impregnation and removes its consequences." 

Cool, it doesn't say it kills the baby. As I said removing a parasite which then dies for lack of a host might be ok.

The thing with the Wild Healer is, over there in a chaos infested forest surrounded by other Broo or worse, who's he healing all day every day? When some chaotics raid a stead nearby and some of them get wounded, who is it that patches them up so they can come over raiding again? Time for an expedition to sort this one out, who's in?

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

Broo babies are not implicitly innocent like other babies.  They are invariably the product of rape.  They are chaos monsters.  They will likely kill their "mother" by tearing their way out.  They represent a chaotic danger to the mother, and it is difficult to remove them without magic.  Chaos is the cancer of the world, and broo babies are part of the problem on every level.  Perhaps they will grow up to be another Wild Healer of the Rockwoods, but lets face facts, that isn't how it is going down.

 

Those are good reasons for others to kill them or wage war on chaotics, but that's for them. It's not what Chalana Arroy is about. The healers are not responsible for what a broo baby, or whatever does, they are responsible for what they do themselves. Yes of course here's an argument to be had about standing by and letting things happen. Have that argument, but Chalana Arroy stands on one side of it and you stand on another. That's just the way it is.

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I refer you to real world examples such as Tibetan monks who eat yak meat, and the same goes for Japanese monks eating fish which they class as "vegetable" despite eating meat being against Buddhist doctrine.  In practice, cultures are very pragmatic, and to say that a healer needs to starve to death rather than eat an animal is absurd.  The oath is primarily in place to act as a means of encouraging sentient beings not to become involved in pointless wars that damage the world.  It is a prohibition against killing that tries to lead by setting a good example for other sentient beings to follow.  What a healer is not allowed to do is to pick up a weapon and kill other people.  In Glorantha, that is so abnormal it is like walking around naked in public. What is important is intent, and the intent is about sentient life.  Now the caveat here is, that different subcultures exist within the cult.  In some areas like the hospital temple of Nochet there are orphans employed to save the bugs, but you won't see that amongst the Praxian Chalana Arroys who live with the tribes; they simply can't afford to be that sentimental, and intent is everything.

Sure, there are those that backslide and make compromises. There may well be some Chalana Arroy worshipers of various degrees and shades that vary in their level of devotion and abstinence from violence. I think the strongest and deepest magic and heroquests are only going to be available to those who follow the strictest path though. It may not even be practical out on the plains to maintain the ritual purity necessary to be a priest for example, that might only be possible in places like the Paps (EDIT Unless the tribe is willing to bend itself a bit out of shape in order to accommodate the needs of a CA priest).  Compromising will have it's costs.

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What is important is intent, and the intent is about sentient life.

I don't think so, it's about healing the wounded cosmos and attaining the ritual purity necessary to attain the deepest cult secrets and magic. All violence, of any kind and regardless of the intentions harms reality.

27 minutes ago, Darius West said:

Chalana Arroys can abort broo babies.  They can also cast their spells against Chaos creatures, as Chaos is the cancer of Glorantha.  This goes for diseases too, as thought they are alive, they are the enemies of Chalana Arroy.  You can be as violent with diseases as you please.

Chalana Arroys can cut living things with blades, otherwise surgery would be impossible.  This is an example of needful as opposed to needless suffering.

Chalana Arroys can kill and butcher animals if the culture relies on them for food.  Out of respect, normally someone else will likely perform the actual killing fi they are present.  If not, the Chalana Arroy will likely put the creature to sleep before killing it peacefully.  This is needful suffering, not needless.  Sentient life is the priority.  Animals won't be killed profligately or for sport by Chalana Arroys, and there is likely no reason why they can't learn to use Peaceful Cut when living in Prax.  There is also the possibility of "found meat" i.e. something that was dead before you arrived.

Broo babies are a real problem, I'm not sure they can do this. There would certainly be those who decide it is wrong. Someone else might have to do it.

Surgery yes, I think that's fine although there are likely to be some that would avoid those arts in favour of specialising in other forms of treatment. parasites are also a dilemma, they would prefer to use treatments that remove the parasite alive and if it then dies, well, that's a shame. I don't think most diseases are recognised as being living things, mostly they are caused by spirits

Killing or butchering animals, no. I don't see that at all. If other people want to eat meat, why can't they do it? Killing peacefully? A direct contradiction in terms. All these seem like sensible, practical compromises but no. Just no. Compromise is the death of purity.

I can see that some places make it hard to meet the strictest conditions, but that's just tough.

Yes the expectations on lay members and propitiatory worshipers, i.e. almost everyone, is very different. Maybe they can just abstain from meat for holy days and such.

1 hour ago, Kloster said:

Undead are creatures, but not living ones.

Fair enough, but chaotic living things are still, well, alive. They can even worship Chalana Arroy.

I didn't think the Chalana Arroy abstention from violence was excepted for chaos creatures.

Undead yes perhaps, because they are not creatures, although there is a risk of misidentification. In general though, even against undead or anything, using violent means is a slippery slope. It's not as much about the target, it's about you.

I'd say the expectations on worshipers varies with their rank in the cult. Initiates may get away with non-violence against sentients, while priests might be expected or required to practice total non-violence. I think the phrasing in the sourcebook gives a slightly false impression. It says worship is widespread for "everyone desires her blessings", and worshipers practice total nonviolence, but clearly total nonviolence is not widespread in Glorantha, and it's certainly not for everybody. So clearly it's possible to worship CA and not practice total nonviolence.

I suspect the issue is the author didn't want to use a term to distinguish seriously dedicated worshipers, because saying something like devotees, or priests for example looks too much like using a game mechanical term. After all these are both names for specific game mechanical statuses in various game systems.

On 8/31/2021 at 2:31 PM, Bohemond said:

Sounds like Lunar blasphemy to me--compromising with chaos indeed!

Mainstream Heortling theology.

The PDF I have has a mod date of 2002 in the metadata. I can't remember when or where I got it, in fact I'd forgotten I even had it, but the file creation date says 2010. I vaguely remember finding Steve's web site and being in touch with him at some point so that must have been it.

On 8/28/2021 at 3:44 PM, Atgxtg said:

I doubt that, but it's probably the most well known game to do so early on. I suspect that there were some other RPGs in the late 70s and early 80s that did so but are mostly forgotten today. Even the game mechanics used for WEG's D6 system does something similar, with the attribute actually being the die roll, with the default stat block for NPCs being 2D/4D. 

I think the idea evolved from people playing AD&D where stats below 15 didn't affect game play all that much. When there isn't much difference between a 6 STR and a 14 STR you have to wonder if it is worth the bookkeeping.

Both AM and WEG-SW came out in the same year, 1987.

Arguably RQ3 used some stats directly as modifiers for skill categories, albeit you deducted 10 from the stat first so a DEX of 16 gave you +6% on Manipulation.

On 8/30/2021 at 9:04 AM, PhilHibbs said:

If we want to get into the weeds of a Lie spell interpretation discussion, this thread and forum isn't the place.

I think it's legit here because we're discussing it in the context of what it means in Glorantha and in relation to other things we know about Glorantha, not in the context of using it in a game.

24 minutes ago, SDLeary said:

 

If you are in HtH, a rondel is not going to do a damn thing. You have to immobilize your opponent first, so tha you can get enough leverage to punch through, or find a gap to exploit. Otherwise it would only damage on a crit.

Against an opponent in advanced plate and mail yes, you need to close or grapple first, fair point. They're still pretty wicked weapons though. 

I'm not too bothered, Daggers do the same average damage as a one handed sword, they just don't max out as high on a lucky roll.

6 minutes ago, Kloster said:

Logically, a spell has no gaps, but in that case, a protection spell should apply in case of a critical, and it seems it does not.

Good point on criticals, yes protection spells clearly have gaps, and I don't se why they shouldn't. There's no particular reason to expect them to be uniform force fields, maybe they are literal magical suits of armour. We know the long term armour enchantment cast on one famous Greek hero had a very famous gap in it.

27 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Giving some weapons less outright damage but an armour-piercining ability would be an interesting rules hack. Swords were essentially abandoned on the late-medieval battlefield because they couldn't harm a fully armoured soldier. Glorantha doesn't have anywhere close to that armour quality, of course, but instead it has magical protection and natural armour.

Right, magical armour is a problem. We could give a dagger armour penetration if you can get in close, and closing was a tactic I favoured back in RQ3, but do Protection spells have gaps the way armour does?

Edit: I don't know if its worth the bother. Ancient world armour was much less complete than the medieval stuff so you didn't need as specialised equipment and tactics to defeat it, so special rules are probably unnecessary. I stand by the practical point I made though, the important thing is that weapons and tactics that were used historically remain effective, and whatever the finer points of whys and wherefores, the current rules achieve that. If that means long spears get a few extra points of damage so they remain the weapon of choice in armoured combat then that's fine by me.

Maybe with a longer weapon you can devote more energy and focus on offence. The extra range means you’re not under as much threat, so can throw a lot more time and energy into the blow.

In RQ in practice high damage rolls is largely about getting through armour, so we give high damage rolls to ‘military’ weapons were likely to be using against armoured opponents. Lighter weapons are seen as being less effective against armour, or even just less commonly used against it. A short spear is a hunting weapon, hunters don’t often go up against mail, but long spears are used in phalanxes against armoured opponent. Let’s give them more damage so they are effective. We want weapons used in a context to be effective in that context, right?

Honestly I’ve been uneasy about the correlation between weapon size and damage for a while. I can see the momentum argument, but take medieval daggers like the Rondel. These things were vicious weapons specifically used to kill armoured knights. If you could get in close to an armoured opponent the dagger was how you got through a gap, put some weight behind it and ended them. This is shown graphically several times in The King, notably Timothée Chalamet as Henry uses this tactic in a duel early on. It also seems to be how Richard III met his end.

On 8/26/2021 at 3:10 AM, EricW said:

My example, a tricker lie spell would almost certainly fail to convince a non illuminated storm bull to embrace chaos, because they fundamentally know this choice is wrong. Completely outrageous lies can be rejected because they are outrageous. 

The example given in the Lie spell description, that the sun won't rise tomorrow, is also outrageous.

It depends what the actual lie is. "Embrace Chaos" isn't a lie, it's not a fact. You can't use Lie to issue an order, only to deceive about a specific fact or belief and hope that inspires the desired outcome.

In the example it says the priest of Yelm could try finding out what is going on using Divination, so while the victim believes the lie, they can still act to try and get more information. Not necessarily to falsify it as such, they believe it is true so they don't doubt the lie itself, but they're likely to be confused and seek clarification if the lie contradicts other things they know or believe to be true.

Lie is deep magic and it's why I made the comment about Gbaji (or was it Rashoran?) being a mask of Eurmal. I see a close correlation between how Eurmal distributes Death to all the gods, so everyone has a bit of this power, with how Rashoran teaches them all Illumination. Also the way that both illumination and death aren't problems for the gods the same way they are for mortals. Chaos is the death of the cosmos, but it's also it's origin. The godtime isn't history, it's not an era in the past, it's happening all the time right now powering magic and the cycles of the world. Chaos is creating and destroying the universe right now. That's what time is. That's the truth.

Or did I just cast a Lie spell. How would you know?

I think it's a matter of interpretation of the spell description.

"a successful ritual ensures that the soul does not return as a bad ghost"

I think what the spell actually does is placate the ghost and delivers it to it's proper place in the underworld. However if some other mytho-magical event or summoning or such then disturbs the ghost, I wouldn't expect this spell to do anything to prevent the ghost getting mad again. So maybe this is and issue with this bit of the description? How about this:

"a successful ritual ensures that the soul does not return as a bad ghost by delivering it to it's proper place in the underworld."

I think this makes it clear what's going on, and implicitly opens the door to said ghost getting upset again if said delivery to the underworld gets undone. 

6 hours ago, Revilo Divad Of Dyoll said:

Isn't that the Vadeli?

The Vadeli don't just break the laws of Malkion as such, they follow an inversion them.

On 8/15/2021 at 3:56 AM, Qizilbashwoman said:

What do you think it meant if not "by negating rape, you're just making the world of Glorantha sparkling idealistic rainbows and ponies"

I read it as more like “and it’s a good thing we don’t do that”.

There are various ways to reconcile a change like this.

1. Changes in the political situation, culture or needs of the cult have lead to a change in policy. Warfare, strife and general attrition has reduced the number of initiates and the cult is in dire need of new recruits.Maybe this is a short term change until the crisis is over.
2. It's a difference in policy between temples, the one the PC initiated at is a strict old school sect and the talentless noobs these other temples let in would never cut it under the strict masters your PC was tutored under.
3. If it is just a rules revision and it doesn’t fit with your established campaign, just change it back. No biggie, it’s your game.

I think things like cult initiation requirements are only ever general guidelines for rules purposes. They're a default you fall back on, but in practice may well vary in some respects with time and place in the setting.

She can join the queue.

Mind you, this does mean she legitimately gets the title "Mother Of All Hangovers".

On 8/1/2021 at 6:25 AM, g33k said:

Taking it one step further:  just the fact that the so-called "experts" have included "transgender" into the DSM largely demonstrates how wrong-headed they (and the consequent mindset) is.
*** NOTE that (as of DSM2 in the early 1970's) "homosexuality" was removed from the DSM.  It simply is not a "mental disorder" to be "diagnosed."  Whither transgender in the current (& official) DSM, and in the (all too fallible) opinions of the medical establishment?

I have no problem that transgenderism is not a mental disorder, and clearly removing homosexuality from the DSM was the right thing to do. I'm a Brit so the DSM isn't directly an issue here but of course the debate here and in the US are closely linked. Sure transgender and homosexual people can seek counselling, but then so can some heterosexuals, and given the social treatment of both groups it's understandable. That doesn't make them disorders.

Transgenderism is a medical issue though in ways that homosexuality is not, because it often involves medical treatments such as medication and surgery. This means medical professionals are going to get involved.

I don't know what productive and appropriate engagement by medical professionals should look like, but just to establish some context, is it fair to say that generally these interventions are successful and lead to better outcomes for people? I hope that's the situation, the cases where things go wrong seem to be a worrying but small minority. So basically can we say that medical treatment is often necessary and appropriate, it's the debate and negotiations around that which get complex and fraught?

Bearing in mind he got her stupid drunk, and Baeester Gor is the goddess of fermentation, maybe the god of hangovers?