21st Century Moose

I just spotted this; 2000AD Regened Prog 2288 has the following slightly familiar-looking cover art: So far so coincidental, but then we read about it here: https://2000ad.com/news/2000-ad-covers-uncovered-peter-yong-talks-law-claw-ditching-tentacles-for-2000-ad-regened-prog-2288/ and learn that the original sketch had a lizard instead of an alien.

I'd concede on big game for feeding a tribe in a pre-agricultural society. You're right and I'm wrong there, and it's definitely the case that running down a large antelope or two is more efficient. For a group of adventurers, traders, or whatever travelling light around the countryside, big game seems to me to not be a good idea. The type of hunting required there might be more properly termed "trapping".

This is all off the top of my head and I make no claims for historical or anthropological accuracy in any of it. I'm thinking primarily in game terms here, but feel free to critique and brainstorm in order to get things right. First thing is that I'd draw a distinction between hunting or fishing "for survival", and hunting or fishing "for sport". "For survival" typically goes after small game (e.g. in the case of hunting, rabbits or ground fowl), and is all about traps, snares, baits and lures. It should have no mechanical utility for characters beyond gathering food, and likewise other (more martial) skills should not have bearing on it. It might be done by setting your traps and snares when you camp for the night, then you wake in the morning and check them to see what you've caught, and the goal is to just get enough food for the next day or two. "For sport" goes after bigger game, boar or deer for example, and involves hunting parties going out for days or weeks at a time, with martial skills being used in the hunt. During "for sport" hunting or fishing, "for survival" hunting or fishing should also occur for daily food requirements, but the "for sport" game is typically not consumed on the spot; instead it's brought back to the hall or castle for a feast. "For survival" hunting, fishing or (let's be complete about this) foraging includes abilities such as being able to recognize good spots for game via spoor or droppings, being able to tell which nuts or berries will make you ill, etc. But it would be useless for tracking a rival warband, or finding useful poisons. Tools would typically be improvised on the spot. Sometimes people might carry fishhooks, spear heads, or whatever with them, but they'd complete the tool from local resources and as required. E.g. a fishing spear needs to be long, thin, flexible, sharp enough to pierce the fish, with a small barb to stop the fish wriggling off it. You might carry the spear head around, then make the shaft as required by breaking off and stripping down a suitable tree branch. It would of course be useless in battle, but similarly a typical war spear would probably vapourize a typical food fish if hit with sufficient force. These all fall under the broader umbrella of "survival in the wilderness", and that would also include abilities such as finding shelter, setting camp, finding water, predicting weather, and so on. In a pre-agricultural society, hunting, fishing or foraging would be on the "for survival" basis, and would not be much different from when used while travelling. The tribe would indeed need to move around fairly regularly so as to not exhaust all local resources. Everyone in the tribe would participate, rather than having dedicated "hunters". An early-agricultural society might supplement a grain-based diet with "for survival" hunting, as they have probably not yet domesticated any food animals. In game terms I'd be inclined to handwave the whole thing and say that most characters have sufficient basic ability in all of these to be able to just do them; so long as they spend their few hours at the end of each day, you can just assume success. It doesn't seem something that needs to be bogged-down in rules and detail. On the other hand there are obvious exceptions: a temple eunuch, for example, would probably not be able to do any of these and would be reliant on other characters. Use common sense. Of course, if it suits your game to go further and start devising skills for these, then by all means do, maybe using this as a jumping-off point.

...not to mention having to revisit some of the RQ3 art.

I always felt I must have been missing something about this rule. With total HP being the average of CON and SIZ, damage in excess of SIZ has a fair chance of killing you outright, and will definitely disable the location hit. Any appreciable level of knockback must vaporize you. To this day I still don't get it.

This is what I've recommended to newbies for years as the single best bite-sized introduction you could possibly get. It also functions as a great mini-gazetteer of Prax for prospective GMs. The only downside is that you might end up falling in love with Prax, whereas the bulk of RQG content is for Dragon Pass.

That map just reminds me so much of the classic ICE Middle-earth maps. It's probably even more beautiful. Would I be correct to speculate on them being an inspiration?

This looks absolutely beautiful. I'm drooling already, and it really feels like the RuneQuest I've been waiting for for 30-odd years. Well done to everyone involved!

Sounds like God-Learner talk. 🙂

Thing is, there's also (C) "I have enormous power which I can grant to people who worship me" - and that's something that's not in dispute, because it can't be in dispute, because it actually happens. The real question is whether or not those worshippers understand the nature of what they're doing. Some say yes, some say no, but neither denies the fact that (C) does happen.

Their rivalry with the Weasel clan is legendary.

It's difficult to be an atheist when the gods themselves can come and whup your ass upside a tree. Not believing in the gods would be kind of akin to not believing in that tree. What Glorantha does admit is different perspectives on how the whole thing works, so what one perspective views as a god, another may view as something else. But the thing being viewed is no less real in either.

In Turkey culture, "get stuffed" is probably the most offensive thing you could say to anybody.

There's probably a Turkey enclave left somewhere in Dragon Pass. Their shamans are prophesying the coming disaster of Kriss-Muss, and their warriors are busy gearing up to defend against the usual barbarian incursions. Meanwhile Turkey merchants are occasionally met on the road and rumour is that one is thinking of setting up shop in Apple Lane.

I view it as "Bronze Age" in that the predominant metal is loosely equivalent to terrestrial bronze, but so far as technological level is concerned it's very much an "anything goes" world. In many ways the crazy tech mixture of a Final Fantasy game may be a better yardstick. That's not to say that there aren't some cultures that look, feel, smell and taste (and sometimes even quack) like terrestrial Bronze Age cultures, but there are likewise more primitive and more advanced cultures too.