Darius West

No, far more malicious than Yelm and Magasta, and neither of them are nice guys.

ORLY? evil ē′vəl adjective Morally bad or wrong; wicked. Causing ruin, injury, or pain; harmful. Characterized by or indicating future misfortune; ominous. Bad or blameworthy by report; infamous. Characterized by anger or spite; malicious.

The mouth of a put is under its lid.

You are putting the cart before the horse here. The equatorial climate and fertility of Pamaltela is due to the fact that Pamalt lives. Really they difference between Time and Entropy is slender. Chaos stems from the ritual pollution of the Primal Plasma by the Unholy trio, turning it into the Chaosium (or source of all Chaos). The beings born from this were linked to annihilation, and they pollute and corrupt the world. If you don't believe me, feed your children to a Bagogi queen, or let them be decapitated by Thanatar, or perhaps offer them to the broos and see what happens. Chaos is the death of the world, and if you love the world, you fight for its survival against chaos. If you are debased and foul, wanting power even if in its ugliest forms, then you fight for chaos.

Chaos Gift isn't permanent. It's temporary rune magic. From memory it does give you a permanent chaos taint however.

Yeah, the Chaosium folk decided that the cool looking Issaries rune shouldn't be a thing anymore.

Only if you have turned into a broo is that a problem. Hence the "become broo" chance with chaos features.

The point being they won't detect as being chaotic. Yes, the overt signs will be present, but not all chaos features have overt signs. This is why Chaos features also have the "become a broo" chance. This is the point at which your chaos features can no longer be hidden, and you can no longer pass as your original species.

Well, illumination will hide the overt signs of chaos like a chaos taint or feature. It won't hide your Thanatar tattoo, or your talking severed head collection. Illumination is useful for chaotics but not enough on its own. For that you need tradecraft.

These fierce religious extremist skinheads are clearly from Vormain not Kralorela 😉

It is implied, not written. I mean this is Pendragon ffs 😅

Good call, I misinterpreted the info. I confused Common Magic with Spirit magic. 😬

The spearman in question is still learning to count. He hasn't quite got the hang of 1 yet, hence the head. When he gets to 2 reliably he will quit and become a roady.

I was specifically referring to pre-gunpowder societies. We are after all, referring here to Pendragon. You won't find much romanticizing of themes like Athenian democracy or Scythian egalitarianism until well into the early modern period.

To be fair, the Humakt cult rules only say "bless a specific weapon", not "bless a sword" (p296). Of course Humakt's rune magic like sword trance and truesword won't work on the bow. The up-side is that Humakt has access to all common magic, which includes all the missile spells. The bow skill, once mastered, will count as one of the weapons needed to be mastered to become Rune Level in Humakt.

That's hilarious! Keep it! The Marshedge Clan has lost the village that is named after them, and so have the Poss! I put it down to Lunar restructuring post Starbrow's Uprising.

You don't need enormous skills. You use meditation and sympathetic magic to boost your sorcery skill usage. Sorcery is always time intensive, but it makes up for it with having potentially enormous durations. You get your tick and you roll your up.

I'm not reading a lot about the main way humans hunt successfully, namely TRAPS! Whether snares, deadfalls, pits, or whatever, traps are the best way to catch game. You literally set them up, cover your scent, wander off, and wait for the screaming to start. Forget rune magic and who can turn into what. Forget missile weapons. A well-placed and undetectable trap is where it is at.

Not really, I was thinking these guys... The "halberdier is using a "ge" or dagger-axe, you know, the one that does 3d6 damage. The crossbowman is a bit useless though; where are his bolts? "Has anyone seen my spear? How can I be a spear carrier without a spear?"

Krarsht has an easy time of infiltrating societies that have sewerage systems. They get in everywhere, like rats. Thanatar is more difficult and more interesting therefore As to Thanatar, pretty much nobody can tolerate them, not even the Lunars. This means that they have a difficult time setting up anything approaching a shrine, let alone a temple at the best of times. There are chaos cults that can tolerate Thanatar, but they would likely be uncomfortable in dealing with them in the longer term. It is reasonable to assume that the major chaos hotspots have some sort of Thanatar presence i.e. Dorastor, Stone Woods, Snakepipe Hollow, and of course Than Ulbar, which is the cult's "capital". If we assume that Thanatar is always going to be on the small size, that means they will need the following: Site: 1 member. Shrine: 75 members Minor Temple: 125. Major Temple: 400. Great Temple 750. Now moving into established areas, even if done with great discretion is going to attract attention. If you buy land and rock up in a province with a party of settlers anywhere in the Lunar Empire, you are going to attract attention from local authorities and neighbors. You will need to be paying tax to someone, and the more quite and irrelevant you make yourselves the better. It could be a very good idea to set up on the fringe of the empire, but the best option is always to set up in a ruin or cave complex with some pattern of past settlement. Ruins are great because they likely have water supplies, allow you to cannibalize previous dwellings for building materials. The problem is that you need to deal with any "residents". This can mean that simply creating a small innocuous settlement in the hinterlands can be perfect, even if you lack for certain supplies. There's a problem with this "folk horror" approach to Thanatar. Let's face facts... Nobody joins Thanatar because they want to become a farmer in a tiny isolated village. They will end up slaughtering each other out of sheer boredom. So there is a better approach... Namely, "hijacking". And by hijacking I mean infiltrating existing settlements through patronage. The great appeal of Thanatar is that it provides a marvelous means of getting a lot of power quickly by stealing heads and devouring minds and books. The Lunar empire is also replete with opportunists, wealthy people, illuminates, as well as corruptible and mad folk. You just need the right one, and the list is likely to be long. As such, Thanatari agents need to maneuver themselves into contact with a corruptible person of influence and offer them services such as "murder for hire", as well as potential membership in the most forbidden cult of all, which they will never show up as a member of due to illumination. It helps if the agent already has some means of blackmail to hold over the individual they are approaching. Having reached an amicable arrangement with the owner to fast track their initiation into Thanatar, the agent establishes themselves in one of their new patron' plantations, and gradually filters in their cult members, while putting fear into the slave population. The slave trade has umpteen benefits for the Thanatari, as you will see. All the slaves get replaced over the course of a year or two under claims of "financial restructuring" or some-such, if anyone cares to even ask. Thus the plantation becomes a place where most of the slaves work the land and live in terror but will know nothing about the proclivities of their owners. The settlement becomes a slave trading and breeding hub. Expert slaves are brought in. Some of these experts are retained to train slaves to improve their value for sale, but others get sacrificed to the cult, and records most likely show the missing slaves having died and been cremated (thanks Lodril customs). When the cult operates committing murders, it does so as far afield as it can, and as discretely as it can. It might even be that the Thanatari run a "gladiator ludi" as cover for training their agents. Slaves with excavation and masonry skills are put to work creating a subterranean temple complex. As Thanatar requires the sacrifice of a Humakti, a Stormbull, a Yelmalio and the burning alive of a Lhankor Mhy, the slave trade allows them to basically buy what they need in the slave markets without raising any eyebrows. All this requires is a veneer of Lunar worship as cover. Of course succession poses problems. Once your pet madman dies, what becomes of the plantation? Who inherits? You know that this sort of intrigue will be very interesting to play.

A light tribute/tax is a fair price to pay for safe passage through a nomad's territory The thing about the free market is that if you kill the merchants you kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. The merchants have great things to trade, but if you tax them too heavily, they stop coming, just like if you killed them. The other thing is, merchant pack animals aren't generally much worth stealing by Nomad standards, I mean, better than nothing but never exceptional. The chief quickly realizes that it is worth his while to tax them lightly but leave the mule men alone. It might be any number of things. Kralori Dagger-Axemen. Kralori Crossbowmen. Red Headed Steppe children of the Lunar Empire. Pentan nomads themselves (of different tribes). Wayward Praxians. Scorpion Men (apparently some people hire them as caravan mercenaries). Trolls and trollkin. Hsunchen guides...

The goods of the civilized world are brought north. They include silk, lacquerware, porcelain, tea, spices, incense, medicines, rice wine, fragrant jungle timbers, furniture, metal goods, cotton, grains, paper, literature, magic items, riding animals, carpets, and other assorted wealth. The goods going south will include rare furs, slaves, gems, unprocessed ore, jade, mast timbers, oily fish, wool, felt, amber, weird alcohols, hemp, soybeans, soy sauce.

When Red moon hits your eye and you go mad and dieThat's a Hero QuestWhen the world seems to shine like you've stepped Before TimeThat's a Hero QuestMagic rings ting-a-ling-a-ling, ting-a-ling-a-lingAnd you'll see pretty coloursSwords will slay stabby-stabby-hay, stabby-stabby-hayLike some Humakti fellaWhen the stars make you drool like an Eurmali fool That's a Hero QuestWhen you glide down the street with a cloud at your feetYou've got sylphWhen you walk in a dream but you know you're not dreaming, you've guessedScusa mi, but you see, back among OrlanthiThat's a Hero QuestWhen Red moon hits your eye and you go mad and dieThat's a Hero Quest (That's a Hero Quest)When the world seems to shine like you've stepped Before TimeThat's a Hero Quest (That's a Hero Quest)Magic rings ting-a-ling-a-ling, ting-a-ling-a-lingAnd you'll see pretty coloursSwords will slay stabby-stabby-hay, stabby-stabby-hayLike some Humakti fella (crit you well huh?)When the stars make you drool like an Ermali foolThat's a Hero Quest (That's a Hero Quest)When you glide down the street with a cloud at your feetYou're got sylphWhen you walk in a dream but you know you're not dreaming, you've guessedScusa mi, but you see, back among OrlanthiThat's a Hero Quest (a Hero Quest)That's a Hero Quest\

Nope. That F***er has to DIE! Over and over again, if necessary, until it takes (hero quests are incremental). I'm gonna double down on this one. 🦝👎

Curiouser and curiouser 🤔