Darius West

44 minutes ago, Martin Dick said:

Thella (https://glorantha.fandom.com/wiki/Thella) and dreams seem to be quite an important element in Vithela

 

Yes I remember reading about Thella in the East Isles.  She's more along the lines of what I thought a dream deity should be like.  A pity her worship remains a very regional secret.

27 minutes ago, Martin Dick said:

Based upon the Dream World being a type of Illusion, then in the Storm Pantheon, Eurmal would be the God of Nightmares and Donandar the God of Dreams, but dreams don't really seem to be an important thing in central Genertela.

I agree with everything you've written here. 

On the other hand, I'm surprised the Lunars aren't a bit more interested in dreams, given their mystical bent and th epotential for dream driven madness.  We had the (now deprecated) cult of Merasedenya from "Under the Red Moon", but nothing HQ survived the release of HQG (which is probably a good thing in retrospect).

30 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

This is very tempting: Gloranthans don’t have a concept like our concept of dreaming, but they do say that otherworld interactions can be carried on during REM and sleep paralysis.

However, it is always good to offer an alternative. Try this: Argan Argar is the deity of Wakefulness; Xiola Umbar is the deity of Dreams; Zorak Zoran is the deity of Nightmares. Dreams are visions (so Light/Sky/Fire connection) in the Darkness (where you can only see by the light within). This function of these deities may be hard to talk about: cult secrets; non-Uz shunning ‘trollish’ gods; Uz not being primarily a visual bunch, perhaps they don’t dream, or dream differently — with their dreams presided over by a bat or other ‘sonar’ deity; the proximity of dream to illumination. Behind the three friends, of course, Arachne Solara, who — being a greater god — is not much worshipped. Doubtless you can think up other reasons why the deities with a special interest in dream don’t get much mention in the big public places of worship. Cragspider knows many dream secrets — she is a Gloranthan Sigmund Freud.

This is a really good interpretation mfbrandi and I like it a lot.  The use of troll deities explains why dreams remain so elusive to humans, but it does (in my mind at least) suggest a certain primal sort of dream. On the other hand, if Zorak Zoran is the god of nightmares, then seriously, the children of Glorantha have a serious Freddy Kruger plus problem under their beds.  There will need to be a deity who protects sleeping children from the influence of ZZ so he doesn't basically eat children from the inside out while they sleep as he feeds on their terror.  Also, it doesn't quite explain the more tangible relationship the Dragonewts seem to have with dreams than all other Elder races.  I mean, Dragonewt cities seem to behave like dream architecture, we have dream dragons and the Dragonewts' Dream that opened the Big Rubble.  Dragonewts aren't very trollish.  I also worry that humans would have developed their own dream specialists and deities to match.

1 hour ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

I mean your god (any one) is able to communicate with dreams. Your ancestors too. What could provide a dream god that your god (poetry, war, business, knowledge..) is not able to offer ?

I can think of a great many things that a dream god could provide off the top of my head...

The ability to send other people dreams and nightmares. 

The ability to dream things into being (like the trickster Hallucinate Spell).  

The ability to increase the healing and magic recharging benefits of sleep. 

The ability to build a dream palace with many features of a memory palace. 

The ability to improve one's skills and magic by interacting and training within a dream.

The ability to create a working temple to one's gods in one's dreams and thus refresh RP through nightly worship.

The ability to change people's opinions without them realizing it.

The ability to learn and research sorcery spells much faster.

An alternate and easier (or harder) path into the other realms.

The ability to create meeting places where people who dream can meet in secret.

The ability to manifest monsters from the depths of the human psyche into the real world

Maybe even a better ability to understand and communicate with dragonewts.  

With our dreams we make the world.

Humans spend 1/3 of their lives asleep.  In Glorantha, sleep is the time when you get your magic points back.  Allegedly, sometimes deities and spirits interact with you in your dreams in Glorantha.  Sleep is also the time when dreams come unbidden into one's head.  We also know that the main users of dream magic are the dragonewts, after all they produce dream dragons, and the Dragonewts Dream unlocked the Big Rubble.  

So the questions...

Who are the Deities of Sleep and who is the Deity of Dreams in Glorantha?  I mean, in Greek myth, we can point to Hypnos, and Morpheus.  In Mesopotamian myths it is Mamu and Sisig etc.  I suspect many Earth pantheons just had deities of night, and rolled sleep and dreams into their "portfolios".

I think the Lunars have Merasedenya, (HQ, "Under the Red Moon" p83) but what about the other pantheons?  Do they have sleep and dream deities?  Do they need them?  If they don't need deities to account for the visions people see when they sleep, how do they culturally explain dreams and sleep?

For that matter, by what process do people get their magic points back when they sleep in Glorantha?

On 11/14/2022 at 8:30 AM, Erol of Backford said:

Thank you Mr. Brooke, I forgot how good that issue was!

Yes, TORM was all pretty good but those were stand-outs.  Think of it as a Gloranthan souls-like... 

UPLAND MARSH: Prepare to drown...

Orlanth was also a kidnapper/seducer.  Look what happened to Heler/a and Mastakos, not to mention Dendara/Ernalda.

On 11/11/2022 at 12:44 AM, French Desperate WindChild said:

there is something i don't know about the impact of heroquesting in the world

Hi FDWC,

               In terms of making new gods, remember that this is extremely unlikely and undesirable.  Why?  Because it breaks the Great Compromise.  This means that the Gods themselves can interact within Time and end the new god.  

The Red Moon Goddess was an exception because she is a cyclical entity who existed Before Time.

Arkat is also an exception, but mainly because he is the shadow of Nysalor, and was created to be the unreconciled opposite of Nysalor; a form of mystic test for a deity who reconciles opposites.

Zistor's rapid destruction is a good example of what making a new god generally ends up in.

Firshala in the Elder Wilds however represents a "big spirit" who with worship could become an increasingly powerful entity.  I find the idea of a 4th Age Firshalan Empire emerging in Balazar to be humorous.

9 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

However, the Yelmalio E-Type is exactly the same as the 1970s (RQ2).  Still has it's quirks.  With time, they have gotten even more noticeable.  Still has style. 

But, as a performance car for the warrior adventurer, Yelmalio is no longer recognizable as a good choice.

You aren't using the darkness rules (p224) properly.  Yelmalio is a night fighter who uses the power of light to aid visibility.  The darkness rules are punishing.  Yelmalio for this reason is still an excellent troll slater, as well as dealing with subterranean chaos better than everyone else.

I personally think that the whole idea of "Yelmalio" as a single deity is wrong.  We should have several similar variants that account for the regional differences in how the deity works.  Ostrich Yelmalio is not Far Point's Elmal, and Elmal is not Sun County's Tharkantus.  Yelmalio is really Lunar propaganda to pretend that several similar cults are the same cult and then strip it away from the Orlanthi, by uniting them in a myth of hostility to Orlanth.  It just ain't so.

If you think Yelmalio needs a rewrite, what about using regional differences to create several differing versions of Yelmalio?

52 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

 which is not to say you are wrong, but to some of us, it does look like he is a politician saying, “Mistakes were made, but I have made my non-apology apology, so now we have to move on. You think I’m bad? Look at that Chaos fiend over there.”

I think you're straight up wrong here mfbrandi.  Orlanth takes full personal responsibility and faces the bath of Nelat.  If you think the usual deity narcissism suhc as you might receive from Yelm (who did nothing wrong) is better I fear you've grasped nothing.  A good portion of why the Gods fared so badly against chaos is because the gods were narcissists who could never admit their shortcomings and "did nothing wrong".  In this sense, Orlanth is the best of the gods, because he is the wisest and the only one who understands their limitations.

3 hours ago, JRE said:

It is French, but I hope you forgive me.

Déjà vécu.

Is the god dreaming the hero, or the hero dreaming the god? That I cannot answer.

Actually... Who is Glorantha's god or goddess of dreams?  Do gloranthans dream of runic sheep?

I should also point out that I really like Orlanth for being the only deity to actually admit he could be wrong about things.  Most deities are towering narcissists who never admit they have ever done anything wrong.  You won't hear Yelm admitting he's a narrow minded tyrant.  You won't see Magasta second guessing himself for being a cold blooded psychopath with a perverse fetish for giant monsters.  You'll never hear Zzabur admit that maybe he over-reacted a bit, or Ernalda thinking that perhaps she shouldn't be quite so loose, or maybe even Chalana Arroy thinking "Ya know, I really wish I could moider dat bum". Well, Orlanth can admit he's made a mistake, and that is why he is a great ruler.

I like the idea that most HQ rewards for Theists are expressed as Gifts/Geases.  I could see that failed HQs might result in wounds than never heal properly (that potentially need another HQ to treat), but also a piling up of crippling geases, which are potentially worse than mere death.  Similarly you might be really successful and get a Gift without any geases.

But for myself, I side with the God Learners; the only reason I ever want to go HQing is to skin Mr. Raccoon, because a character with a name like that is asking for it.

7 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Because I am an idiot, in playing the popular party game of Which of the 7 Mothers is Which of the 7 Lightbringers?, I never thought to make Danfive Xaron = Orlanth. We have tentative and anyway decade-old word of Jeff that “[t]he closest thing [to Trickster] might be Danfive Xaron”, but I rather fancied him as the dark twin of Issaries (as Yelmalio is the dark twin of Zorak Zoran). Issaries has the runes of Mobility (change, freedom), Harmony, and Issaries (fair exchange, so balance is not really a stretch) and — in his current configuration — DX has Moon (constrained change, balance), Harmony (a straight match), and Death (which — squinting very hard at it — is half of an Issaries rune: the take half without the giving half, ostensibly) — so there is considerable runic resonance. They are both psychopomps: “Danfive Xaron” is fooling no one, he is clearly “Danfive Charon”, even if he says the ferryman is just his mate. If we buy the line that a god’s children are often aspects or manifestations of them, recall this famous bit about Garzeen/Middleman:

Back when I met him, Greg told me that the 7 Mothers were doing a modified 7 Lightbringers quest to "restore light"; in this case the moon.  He also said that the "Penitent Criminal" (Danfive Zaron) was Orlanth, from a Yelmic perspective.

Regency C'thulhu will dovetail nicely with Colonial Australia C'thulhu in terms of the time.  I suggest all your characters be very well behaved indeed or they may need a long voyage South to visit the Van Demons.

On 11/15/2022 at 6:11 AM, Erol of Backford said:

What about for other Lightbringer Cults?

I ran a game where there was an old Orlanthi chariot from EWF days that could serve as a mobile shrine to Mastakos.  It was lost in an oily sump in the Clanking Ruins.

On 11/15/2022 at 6:38 AM, Nevermet said:

Is there a term for when you find basically the same narrative in multiple myths, but in 1 version its a great god, another version its a minor god, and in a 3rd version its a hero?

I would use the word "Theme", or possibly "Recurring Theme" to highlight the phenomenon. 

13 hours ago, Ali the Helering said:

Absolutely agreed, with the caveat that the HeroQuest is seldom an event of great power and peril except at Sacred Time and on Holy Days. 

I once told Tindalos that I was off to lead the primary Christian HeroQuest to which he replied "A communion service then?".  Exactly.

I hope you achieved anamnesis.

13 hours ago, svensson said:

So I guess my question is just as the title of the thread says... How common is HeroQuesting really?

If you cast your definition of HQing very broadly then potentially every day a Barntar initiate is out planting or harvesting crops can be considered a HQ.

Personally I don't buy it.

If you look to the King of Dragon Pass book, you can see that Argrath does plenty of HQs but likely not more than 20 real HQs in his life, if memory serves me correctly.

I don't define HQs as being the easy rituals that get performed every season.  Your initiation into adulthood  is a bit of an HQ but it is seldom too life threatening. 

Real HQs are potentially very life threatening.  They are high stakes ritual gambles with big rewards.  They are also major undertakings which can involve huge resources from potentially more than one organization.  Favors have to be called in.  You likely want your entire supporting crew charged up with magical resources prior to the HQ as well.  HQs are rituals with "infrastructure" that do more than any simple temple service on a holy day.

The simple fact is, that only the most well-organized and thus powerful agglomerations of groups will be able to come close to being able to perform 1 HQ per season, and they won't be able to do it indefinitely.  They might have 1 year where they do a series of HQs, then lie fallow a couple of years, then do 1 small HQ, then rev up again a year or 2 after that, when the benefits of the first HQs are wearing thin.

HQs are either worldly rituals that echo into the Hero/God plane, or they are occasions when humans directly intervene in myth cycles, incrementally changing them through their actions over time.  These are powerful things, and they should be invoked respectfully, nt like God Learning, and thus infrequently, and when serious need arises.  The rate of this will however increase as the Hero Wars get going.

When I spoke to Greg, he suggested to me that there was always something of a HQ war being conducted between different groups.  Clans might HQ against other Clans t steal their fertility.  Cults would HQ against enemy cults.  Nations against Nations.  Each is trying to obtain, ruin or hijack each others' magical HQ advantages.  This emerges and becomes a sort of extra front of the Hero Wars, as both sides become increasingly God Learner-ish in their desperate pursuit of an edge to win the war.

The way I see it, a successful HQ allows you to interact with Glorantha Before Time, where the gods and old powers are still at large.  This is not the same as time travelling, as Before Time also subtly alters as a result of human actions in Time.  What it does is draw far more magic from Before Time (when the powers in the world were far more active) into the comparatively barren magical landscape of the mortal realm of Time.

This was part of why I objected to HQ as a game system too.  The notion that this happens every day, or once a week, or every adventure devalues what a HQ is imo.  Sure, if you go into the Rainbow Mounds you will be interacting with critters from Before Time who inhabit an area that seems to allow far greater cross-percolation of the Before Time world to mortal Time, and that is dangerous, but is it an adventure or a HQ?  I would suggest it is an adventure with minor HQ elements, and those HQ elements spice up the adventure, but it isn't a real HQ.

30 minutes ago, 1d8+DB said:

So there's an  indie game of  'colloborative' story-telling and narrative role-playing called 'Microscope'.  You can play  and create epic arcs ('The Five Thousand Reign of the God Emperor'), zeroing in on specific periods ('The Trade Wars') and key figures ('Lady Rhaya Mhazil of the Ardara Counting House'). I thought I would like to try it to create a back-ground/history for use in a more conventional TTRPG.  You could also use it to to create a narrative frame-work that you could then slot your  PD/BRP 'mini-campaigns' into for a generational/supra-historical game.

Yeah, microscope is interesting as a method of world development, and could potentially be used for a generational game.  Good suggestion 1d8+DB.

On 11/15/2022 at 3:22 AM, mfbrandi said:

So among the other aspects, wouldn’t we expect to see a cult of Orlanth Penitent, worshipping an Orlanth in sackcloth and ashes who is very very sorry? Is there such a cult (or something similar)?

The answer is unequivocally Danfive Xaron.

16 hours ago, Ali the Helering said:

I know we have had massive differences in the past Darius, but this is brilliant! 

Have we 🤔?  I seldom take things personally or much to heart, and I certainly never felt that way about you Ali.  Glad you liked this tidbit however, I've been using this  over multiple games since 1994, as the need arises.

I also had a system for creating a Cyberpunk character background much like the RQG rules pages 29-45, but where you learn skills each year based on your age and your parent's background, but it generated a large back-story that players could then embroider a bit.  My players liked it so much they would sit there rolling up character after character, noting down the back stories, and it was frustratingly hard to get them to actually start playing.  One of my players took the system home and generated a 4 generational family tree with all the family members over the course of 80-100 years written up as a 50 page novella.  It was then I realized I had created a monster... I mean, I'm a GM and I regularly create monsters but... a character creation system that gets the players addicted to it was not something I anticipated.  I could easily produce a version of it for RQG, Pendragon, or CoC, if there was some interest.

I actually have rules for conception and genetic inheritance.  I also have rules as to how to manage attribute changes as characters grow from babies to children to spotty delinquents to adults.  This can be used for all games, not just Pendragon, but is powerful magic, and should not be used lightly.

Conception:

from unprotected sex is 1 on 1d8. (I checked the stats and this is pretty accurate, you may apply a bonus for mothers having high or low CON, by using a 1d6 for healthy mothers and 1d10 for unhealthy mothers, potions might further modify the dice). 

Genetic Inheritance:

Rather than rolling up stats, you employ the stats of the parents and use the following table:

Genetic inheritance rules are Roll 1d10.  1-4= Same sex parent's stat, 5-7= Opposite sex parent's stat, 8=Average of both parent's stat, 9-0= Take after grandparent (Roll random stat).

Obviously same sex parent stat means if your character is a girl, she takes after her mother, while opposite sex in this instance would mean taking after her father.

Growing Up:

As to aging... Divide each stat by 15+1d6.  The result of the 15+1d6 indicates when the character will stop growing.  The fractional result is applied each year the character grows, but only to physical stats...  Intelligence is present from birth. Appearance is apparent from a young age, and should only be divided by 7.  The GM may also optionally give each character a single stat that is only divided by 10, which they improve in rapidly.

Charisma and Social stats however are another matter.  First divide Charisma by 2.  Then divide that halved product by the age of legal majority in the culture.  The character will only develop up to half their Charisma, and then will get the rest of it when they achieve legal majority or soon thereafter, as before then they are just kids and nobody much listens to them.  Obviously this doesn't apply to Pendragon though. 

Remember also that in the first years of your characters life, they are engaged in the rigorous training exercises of learning mobility, speech, not wearing one's food but putting it in one's mouth, and appropriate social performance of bodily functions.  It is a blistering program, and the fact that characters are able to discover syntax with minimal prompting is super unrealistic imo.

On 11/13/2022 at 8:23 PM, Ian A. Thomson said:

Just checked and you are credited (p159)

Hope that's sufficient

Great idea there!

Please say if its not OK, as it could be replaced

Apologies that I forgot to thank you at the time

So many elements and it just slipped my mind

S'All good.  You're a gentleman Ian.

Generational campaigns are a very ambitious undertaking, and hard to do at all, let alone well.  I have revved up to create settings that would last potentially multiple generations, but I've never had a campaign that went past two generations.  For that reason, I'd suggest that you make each character really only have one big adventure, sort of like a mini-campaign over several sessions before they retire, if you want to make the generational aspect an important part of play.  I'd also make sure that the players understand that the generational aspect of the game is the big selling point, as players often get pretty involved with their characters and their progression, and will forget about the whole "generational" thing in favor of one more adventure with "Sir X the Unknown".

2 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

Can you explain the problem? Ian was asking for ideas he could use in his book, you contributed an idea, and you were credited in the book when he used it. Unless there’s more to the situation than meets the eye, I don’t see what the issue is.

I had no idea Ian was looking for ideas for a work to publish, I thought it was for his personal RQ campaign.  It was a surprise.