Darius West

On 4/9/2024 at 2:22 AM, Joerg said:

I wonder whether they really worship Foundchild or whether their neighbors call their ancestral worship of Rasout "Foundchild".

Perhaps Rasout means "orphan", like Foundchild means "orphan"?

On 4/9/2024 at 1:00 AM, Ironwall said:

However they do worship Foundchild who is associated with brother dog. So dogs could have a mystic justification for a dog presence among the Agimori. 

And yet we never get dogs in their stat blocks... Just sayin'.

On 4/6/2024 at 8:43 AM, PhilHibbs said:

No chance for emergency healing to avoid death?

Casting a Rune Spell takes 1SR.  Heal Limb is the "go to".  If you are out of RP, you are out of luck.  No chance to cast if you are unconscious; then it is someone else's problem.

7 hours ago, Ironwall said:

They could use dogs as camp guardians.

If the Agimori did that, then they should also use them as hunting animals imo, given Brother Dog.  Certainly nobody is arguing that Animal Nomads don't use dogs to guard their camps, but do Agimori?

On 4/5/2024 at 8:45 PM, David Scott said:

If a player wanted to play a men-and-a-half (per RQB 75) and chose the Hunter occupation, I'd let them have a hunting animal (typically a shadowcat or dog) per the occupation (RQG 69). I'd let them have a dog or another animal - maybe a even a baboon (normal), monkey or hawk, but not a shadowcat as they are Sartar and Hendrikiland specific (RQB 144).

The men-and-a-half have been in Prax and the Wastes since before the Dawn, and their hunters have been in contact with those of the other tribes (per Organization LB 88), they hunt the same animals, and occasionally participate in the same Great Hunts. I've always imagined that hunting animals are not widespread amongst any of the Praxian hunters, and I apply that to the men-and-a-half too. Note that in the Great Hunt, hunters must hunt alone - so no hunting animals.

As for camp dogs, I don't think the men-and-a-half have those, as they are related to Waha (Waha's brother is a dog - RQB 144).

I could certainly see that an Agimori hunter who is well travelled may adopt an animal companion to help with hunting, and given Foundchild is their cult, I'd pretty much insist on Brother Dog.  But that would be for individuals who are away from their tribe and need help hunting.  Brother Dog will help.

It is also the case that Animal Nomads don't use dogs for anything other than guarding their camps.  Brother Dog is still a shamanic option however, just as worship of Foundchild is an option for Animal Nomads too, as Foundchild is Waha's old friend, and so is Brother Dog.  I don't think Agimori have camp dogs though.  I do include a small "warrior society" of Animal Nomads who use dogs to help with herding, who call themselves the Dog Brothers.

 I might argue that if the Agimori don't have camp dogs, where do they get their stock for hunting animals in you system, but YGWV.

20 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

by the way, is this notion still relevant  :  gods (like Orlanth or Yinkin) are different than great spirits (like Kolat or Fralar) ?

I have deliberately opted for Yinkin because I have a memory of a war between gods and spirits with Yinkin "betraying" the beasts spirits, choosing  Orlanth's side.

both "no" and "yes" make sense for me, with the only issue with "yes" is there is a question to answer "what is the difference then ?"

The obvious answer is that spirits don't have an infinity rune, but gods do.  When a shaman sees a god, the god seems impossibly large and powerful, blotting out the horizon.  A shaman will know that this means they have an infinity rune, as they are part of the very weave of the world, and blessed by the Spider herself.

Now some major spirits have very high POW and enough connection to their rune to grant rune spells to those who venerate them with worship, but they have no infinity rune, so technically they can still be defeated in spirit combat, regardless of how unlikely that might be.  Gods can't be defeated in spirit combat.

At some level, Gods are just very big spirits, but they are also more than that.  Perhaps that is why shamans can't get much more magic out of the Gods than 1 point or so?  A lack of insight?  Personally I doubt it.  I think shamans can turn into rune priests if they learn the inner secrets of the spirit they venerate, but that is a form of "spiritual marriage" that most shamans are reluctant to enter into, as it would cost a good portion of their spiritual autonomy.

That's my opinion, anyhow.

On 3/28/2024 at 7:11 PM, EricW said:

Are there any gods who only communicate through priests and rune lords, whom a shaman cannot contact and worship?

That is a fair question.  I would suggest that worshipping non-spirit deities is hard for shamans.  That is not to say impossible.  The shaman will need a physical object that has been in contact with a deity during God Time (it can be a place).  When they set up their worship, the shaman is likely effectively creating an Associated Deity shrine, such as one might find in the temples of friendly deities.  They are unlikely to get more than one Rune spell from such a shrine, as while the shaman can effectively self-initiate by spending a point of POW to form a link, they simply don't know the full mythology and rites of the god in question, and so cannot do more.  The shamans are generally limited as to how many followers they can attract to their shrine as well.

Case in point, the Praxian shamans can contact Pole Star, who is an important solar deity with quite an arsenal of Rune Magic, but the Praxian shamans can only access the Rune Spell "Captain Souls".

While we know Agimori are the children of Lodril and generally worship Foundchild the hunter, there is never any mention of the Agimori employing dogs in their hunting.  Do Agimori employ dogs in their hunting? 

I personally think they don't.  Agimori are noted as taking a particular delight in hunting, and dogs would make that easier, perhaps too easy, which doesn't correspond with the Agimoris' regime of training hardships.  For this reason I don't think Agimori Foundchild worship includes Brother Dog. 

I am interested in people's opinions on the matter.

Much though they hate to admit the fact, Clay Mostali aren't robots, they are robot wannabes, trapped in too too sullied flesh.

Waha is restricted to male members of Animal Nomad tribes.  Morokanths are the strangest Waha worshippers.  Nobody else gets in.  

There is probably a modified form of Waha worship that is practiced by Butchers and Leatherworkers in Sartarite society, but they are limited to learning Peaceful Cut.

What is coming after the Lunar Way?

I am hoping Chaos.

Just now, svensson said:

Using Ian Thompson's Pavis 1620 books as a reference, the 'Pavis Royal Guard' are the bandits... thugs and mercenaries hired by the Lunars under command of a Zebra tribesman-turned-brigand. The so-called 'bandits' in the Rubble are actually Zebra Tribe loyalists who resisted the Lunar invasion and had to disperse when the city surrendered.

Hagran the Dirty's loyalty is to Hagran the Dirty.  The Lunars barely register that Hagran and the Pavis Royal Guard exists.  They are far more interested in the Halite Mine.

On 3/28/2024 at 7:57 PM, metcalph said:

Probably Zzabur.

Zzabur is/was mortal.  We can be sure he broke caste, and used spells to increase his longevity.  Now, however he has been zapped out of existence along with Brithos since the Second Age.

On 3/20/2024 at 12:12 AM, svensson said:

Given that the Pol Joni are 'invaders' in Prax and are considered the 'clan of outlaws', do they ever ride zebras?

On the one hand, it could ease relations with Praxian tribes. On the other, there are good 'Stafford reasons' why they don't.

The Zebra Tribe also have their own bandit tribe in the Big Rubble.  The answer is "yes". Derik Pol Joni was good friends with the Grazelanders, and Joraz Kyrem, the creator of the Zebra tribe was Pure Horse.  The Pol Joni and Zebra Tribe have good relations.

On 12/18/2023 at 6:02 AM, Tatterdemalion Fox said:

This is, I suppose, another way to collapse the uncomfortable waveform: to double down on She Deserved It, to introduce more punitive sexual humiliation through violence into the myth cycle (at the hooves of Storm Bull, a player-available deity, rather than by the god who saw the secret of sex-is-power at the bottom of the pit), to embrace the myth of How Uz Make Drums, and to implicitly approve of it all. Perhaps this is a variant from Saird, which has had some cultural cross-pollination with Dara Happa up the river, which understands well how the weakness of women facilitated the existence of evil.

On the contrary, Orlanth could have had Thed slain for her attempted sexual deception.  Instead he showed her mercy, and instead sought to educate her in why sex thru deception is not nice, by using his trickster aspect to come up with an educational counter plot.

Remember also that as a beast goddess, Thed is likely promised to wed to Stormbull,  like many other livestock Beast Goddesses (Uralda, Nevala etc), but she covets Orlanth, and hopes to get a powerful child by him via deception.  Instead goats become rejected among the Orlanthi for good reason.

It isn't Orlanth who does the wrong thing.  It is Thed.  And then it is Stormbull.  Stormbull could have realized Thed's distress and stopped, but Stormbull is a god of animal passions, and just as he doesn't stop when he goes berserk, he didn't stop.  The price Stormbull pays is high.  He sees chaos destroy pretty much everything he cares about.  He himself has to face down the Devil.  This is the revenge of Thed, mother of the Devil (but who is the father? Ragnaglar?  Or Stormbull?). Ultimately it is Glorantha herself who sends the Block to save Stormbull, so Glorantha herself chooses Stormbull over Thed's side.

Ultimately we must admit that all of Thed's choices are evil.  She shouldn't have sought to seduce Orlanth.  She should have understood her acts were wrong and understood the lesson when she realized that her attempt at sexual deception had won her another case of sexual deception.  Play stupid games, win stupid prizes (and they don't come more stupid than The Bull).  Thed shouldn't have teamed up with Ragnaglar (the mad pervert god) and Mallia (the STD goddess) to destroy the world.  Thed always does the wrong thing and makes the worst choice.  I mean, you know a tree by its fruit, and her fruits are Wakboth, and the broos.   Thed is not "women".  Thed is a pervert who wanted only power from day 1. 

On 3/22/2024 at 4:31 AM, Tatterdemalion Fox said:

To prioritize this myth, Thed-Rapes-Orlanth, over what is written elsewhere is a deliberate choice. I am not interested in the reasons for the choice, and shall not openly speculate. But I am interested in the consequences.

No.  Thed TRIES to rape Orlanth.

On 3/22/2024 at 4:31 AM, Tatterdemalion Fox said:

 Our hero-god, our man-god, the thunderer he, our ancestor he, Orlanth he, finds himself trapped between his laws as king and the needs of his people, and his attempt at a solution fails, and the victim becomes a victimizer; a seed of evil grows from that failure, in more ways than one.

So Orlanth should have just exposed Thed's deception and had her executed for trying to rape him?  His real crime then was being merciful and instead trying to teach her why sex thru deception was wrong, as it didn't seem she understood.

On 3/22/2024 at 4:31 AM, Tatterdemalion Fox said:

To incorporate them is a deliberate choice: one of nostalgia, or because you feel that it adds to your Glorantha, or because of the rush of gnosis.

How many Thed stories are there?  Not so many.  I would suggest it is due to a lack of material in print.  I mean, I could make up legends all day, but I prefer to rely on printed material for sources where it exists.  It has nothing to do with nostalgia.  I will even look at HQ material, even though it is largely discarded now.

On 3/22/2024 at 4:31 AM, Tatterdemalion Fox said:

and the victim becomes a victimizer

 Does he though? The abuser was Urox, not Orlanth.  Urox could have sensed Thed's distress and decided not to, but he didn't.

On 3/22/2024 at 4:31 AM, Tatterdemalion Fox said:

Thed-Rapes-Orlanth flattens this into a binary. As you yourself say: Thed is not a victim. She is an evil bitch, a scheming whore, and for attempting to rape someone, her punishment was to be raped in turn. 

That wasn't just a punishment, it was a moral object lesson in why sex by deception is wrong, specifically so Thed could see the error of her ways and repent rather than die.  Orlanth was not the victimizer, he was an educator, and a trickster. 

On 12/28/2023 at 4:10 AM, jajagappa said:

Even today we channel it through 3-4 years of high school sport teams, or 4 years of college, so 2 years hardly seems exceptional.

I must strenuously disagree.  At no stage during high school are youngsters utterly separated from their parents unless they are being sent to a boarding school or military academy.

On 3/20/2024 at 2:24 PM, pachristian said:

Help, please. I remember seeing the name and information about the priestess of Eiritha at Zebra Fort in Pavis in some supplement or another. But for the life of me, I can't find it again.

Does anyone know where that information is found?

I had a good long look and came up blank.  I can't even find a write-up of Zebra Fort.  Do you perhaps mean the Raid On Yelorna scenario in The Big Rubble?  If not I think you have that post-Hero Quest sickness called the "Mandela Effect" by some.  If that proves to be the case, please understand that you are in the wrong reality and need to return home asap.   I've been stuck here for years and it only seems to get worse.

18 hours ago, svensson said:

[Ya know, I was kinda hoping for some love regarding 'Honest Atilla's Mounts and Tack'.... Just sayin' 😆]

Provided.

17 hours ago, Tatterdemalion Fox said:

This, for example. Oh, it certainly has value as a story that is told about Thed, but it is one that tells us much more about the person who falls over himself to say that Thed deserved everything she got for being an evil scheming whore. To willingly trap yourself inside this story, just because once it was written down in a place that is lost to us now, is unworthy of us.

In what way is the world a better place because of the Unholy Trio?  Thed tried to use disguise and subterfuge to obtain sex from Orlanth, and that is sexual assault.  That is a sexual attack on Ernalda's main husband.  Not all of us buy into the illuminated nonsense that up is down, purple is orange, evil is good, and Thed is a victim.  You know a tree by its fruit, and there are exactly 2 broos who deserve to live, and I'm not entirely sure about 1 of them.

On 3/20/2024 at 12:12 AM, svensson said:

On the one hand, it could ease relations with Praxian tribes. On the other, there are good 'Stafford reasons' why they don't.

Derik Pol-Joni the founder of the Pol-Joni's parents were murdered by Sable Riders.  He created the Pol-Joni because the Animal Nomads were raiding into Dragon Pass with Jaldon too often.  It was Sartar himself who brokered peace and amity between the Pol-Joni and the Praxians.  The Pol-Joni and the Sartarites now likely worship Eiritha as the cattle mother instead of Uralda as one of many results.  The Pol-Joni are not going to stop riding horses just because of Praxian disapproval.  Did riding Zebras save the city of Pavis from Praxian aggression?  No.  It actually encouraged it, because it is perfectly fine to raid another Praxian tribe.

On 3/20/2024 at 12:12 AM, svensson said:

Given that the Pol Joni are 'invaders' in Prax and are considered the 'clan of outlaws', do they ever ride zebras?

On the one hand, it could ease relations with Praxian tribes. On the other, there are good 'Stafford reasons' why they don't.

Yes.

4 hours ago, Malin said:

Very true that! I just look forward to seeing her wrestling with these facts, an illuminated Babeester Gor can get very interesting at times. She might come to the conclusion that she needs to hear Thed's side of the story first and not rely on the word of the violators... which will be an interesting heroquest, to say the least.

Yeah yeah, Thed's not to blame.  She didn't want to be Ragnaglar's girlfriend.  She didn't want to unleash Chaos and destroy countless lives.  She's just a victim in all this.  Chop her head off Erannina Chan, we all know she tried to sexually assault Orlanth.

On 3/6/2024 at 1:03 AM, PhilHibbs said:

To me, the bigger problem is how do you run an adventuring campaign with a shaman-priest of Waha in the party, like Vishi Dunn becomes in the Vasana story.

In the story, it is glossed over. He continues to be a wandering adventurer. That's what most people are going to want to do. But there is no guidance on how to do this, all the rules in the book basically say you can't do it - they don't explicitly say this, but the most obvious interpretation is that it basically is end of adventuring career in the traditional sense. It's clearly a mistaken interpretation, but is a common initial assumption.

I have no problem, I can deal with this. I've dealt with it before in previous editions of the game, we can come up with our own mental gymnastics in our group to work around these problems because we're experienced RuneQuest players.

A lot of players are not, and are going to see these obligations as an impasse. This question is an example of this rules-versus-intent problem, the questioner asks how to cope with a 90% income tithe, and the official answer is "he gives 90% of his income to himself".

I disagree Phil.

Every religious official, whether Shaman, Priest, God Speaker or Rune Lord is supported by a community.   One's position as a religious authority is appointed and ordained by that community, and you work for them.  In return you get gear, magic powers and political power.

In the case of Waha Shaman-Khans, they serve their Clan.  They will be the obvious choice as a replacement for any other Khan presently acting as the Clan's leader, but they can also serve as a subordinate.  You have an over-Khan and an under-Khan.  Typically the under-khan is the "understudy" and gets the dangerous missions.  The under-khan is also expected to be working their way into positions of influence with the warrior societies, and is likely to be given responsibility over raiding parties and potentially over the clan warband on occasion.  The over-khan's job is to rule.  The over-khan makes and enforces the rules, and keeps the clan coherent and successful.  Generally it is the over-khan who leads the clan warband.  Ultimately a successful under-khan may win enough followers within the whole tribe, as well as their clan, to get enough followers together to form a clan of their own.  A good under-khan doesn't try to poach followers from their own clan to any great degree however. 

Within an Orlanthi clan, there is potentially more room for more Rune level people, as they have larger resources to draw upon.  The difference being that Orlanthi clans have Weaponthanes, and many of them will be Rune Lords, paid for and owning land provided for by the Clan.

In terms of tithes, one get to keep magical items, or one's clan gets first rights to purchase them, with the redeemed sum often being counted against one's owing tithe debts.  One's tithe falls due in the day after high holy day, if one cannot pay it weekly. 

Having transitioned to Rune Level, the character is now important.  They have a whole clan supporting them financially with land and labor.  They may be required to go heroquesting on the clan's behalf.  Their adventures will now be directed by the interests of more people than just their own.  This is not to suggest that they won't be adventuring anymore, but that the stakes will be higher than their personal survival alone.  They are a public property.   This is what being a tier 1 hero is like.

Bah !  Death is too good for those little proto-duvets.