Darius West

I also found that to be stupid. Traveller was a bad system in so many ways. Yes. Exactly like that. I like "The Hound" as an example of how players behave. It is a classic case of being given enough rope to hang oneself. I enjoy this as a theme in my CoC games when I GM. I also agree with you on this to a point. It is certainly what players will do. The only time I play CoC characters somewhat suicidally is during conventions. In CoC however suicide should always be a realistic possibility for characters who fail imo, especially if their failure might have precipitated something worse. You are correct, that players will cling to life if given half a chance, and I always let the dice fall as they may, but when your player has hit their seventh permanent derangement, and has gone from jumping at shadows to wanting to copulate with monsters (teratophilia), and six other debilitating insanities, then suicide can seem like a worthwhile "out".

I think Dwarves are somewhat ashamed of being organic.

It was said (falsely) that King Henry I of England died of a surfeit of eels (it was lampreys). Is it possible that the Lunar Empire is controlled by a surfeit of Eels?

The issue here is that we think of Flintnail as a cult, but that is a human conceit. The Mostali who live and work in the area no doubt hold Flintnail in high regard, and find humoring the humans to be politically useful, but they are not really flintnail cultists, they are Mostali of the Openhandist persuasion who are likely answerable to the Dwarf of Dwarf Run who may or may not be Flintnail. It is a certainty that the dwarves of Dwarfside have a bronze smithy for casting metal equipment, but consider, there is more to this picture. The Big Rubble is full of Elves and Trolls, both of whom are susceptible to iron. There are unquestionably Dwarf warriors present in New Pavis and environs. Every member of the Iron Dwarf caste is an iron smith as well as a warrior. While iron as a material may not be common in the vicinity, and it is unlikely that there are an excessive number of master Iron smiths among the New Pavis dwarves, we would be foolish to assume that the Dwarf equivalent of rune level individuals were not master ironsmiths.

Shut up and drink it, this will put hair on your chest...

Tricksters act as a useful but somewhat unreliable ally for chieftains. They bring with them an arsenal of dirty tricks after all. I would argue that Chiefs cannot reasonably be expected to extend their protection to more than one trickster at a time, and that means that a Chief may eject a weaker trickster for a stronger one if the opportunity presents itself, with all the corollary of trouble that will inevitably bring. Epic trickster lethal prank battle. Actually, if a trickster leaves a crunchy sock under your pillow, it releases YOU from YOUR bond, by symbolically bonding your face to the sock in their place. Any trickster who wants to steal death also needs to perform the hero quest of accidentally circumcising themselves with it, temporarily cutting themselves off from life and fertility. It is also the source of the remove body part heroquest. Trickster has an embarrassing history with magical weapons, as with everything else.

I have no doubt it would be a heady brew, but I think Jaldon's mount will be more powerful, given that it is likely a concentrated form of the Praxian beast rune turned into a mount, being simultaneously of all tribes and none. I also don't think Ethilrist would let anyone milk their demon steeds, as that would be a pagan practice out of keeping with the Atroxic Church. Nevertheless, YGMV, and if someone can capture a demon steed mare, and milk it, why not?

You would need to remember that New Pavis has Flintnail cultists who can produce iron weapons, as well as at least one blacksmith in the Humakt temple, and likely at least one other independent ironsmith. Sun County will almost certainly have one blacksmith as well to cater for the rune level Yelmalios. The numbers are small, but when we are quoting figures like 12, then another 6 blacksmiths is not inconsiderable. I would expect most clans in Sartar would have some provision for equipping their weaponthanes with iron, but while every tribe would have at least 1 blacksmith, any clan that had such a person in their ranks would get plenty of prestige from their presence. I would imagine that Argrath is likely to get his smithing done in the Holy Country when possible. It is a long way behind the lines, and has friendly dwarves, as well as large population centers that could make good money by supplying Argrath's army. While the Heortlings are likely to be eager to fight, I doubt other factions will be as interested, but will also be unlikely not to want to grow rich, and if that means blacksmithing, why wouldn't they? Especially if it keeps the humans off their backs while the complete their section of the world machine? It is a certainty that the Vadeli will sell arms, but if the Lunars don't have a decent port, they cannot receive any Vadeli arms, unless they come overland from Teshnos or the West, which is a longer and more expensive route. There is also a lot of iron just rusting in the ruins of the Clanking City, but mainly bronze. The bulk of everyone's iron still comes from the Iron Mountains in Seshnela. While anyone with the currency can buy there, the Sartarites will have an advantage due to better access by land and sea. The lunars of course have their own independent iron supplies, and can enchant silver to be competitive with iron against spirits, which is a broad class of enemies. They have obviously had a lot longer to build a powerful army and it will start off with a notable advantage in quality equipment for the most part. Sartar will often be using captured Lunar equipment that has had some cosmetic changes, especially with regards to armor.

While chaos are the bad guys and not really recommended for play, having something approaching a "bad guys" campaign available would be interesting.

Good point. I forgot that part of the lore. And to think I didn't include herd man cheese because it was a bit too rude, yet I let this one slide on past. Hahaha. As a bit of a joke I looked up whether it was possible to use semen to create milk product analogs, and discovered the following. The answer is apparently "yes", which lends the whole idea of Unicorn Kumis a level of unintended dirty joke I wasn't expecting but find both ghastly and quite funny. As a result of this discovery I am inclined to let the entry stand unamended, and let it be an in-joke for the cognoscenti. Well spotted soltakss. Unicorn chics, what can I say?

Agreed, ayran is delicious. I have long term notes from my various Prax games that include a look into the terrestrial animal equivalents of Prax and their milks, and their likely cheeses. Some time ago I wrote up a selection of Praxian milk products, in discussion with my father who used to be a food technologist specializing in cheeses early in his life. I have been using these in my Praxian campaigns ever since. As a GM I find it useful to be able to draw on information like this to build a scene. Details like the way a cheese makes Bison riders perspiration stink, or a sense of what the player characters are eating and what it tastes like lend a measure of immersive detail that can help build a scene. I am considering compiling my notes into a Jonstown Compendium supplement. Anyhow, here is a portion of what I have written about Praxian cuisine. Praxian Milk Products “It is possible to torture even milk.” Praxians subsist on the wealth of their animals, and milk is no exception. Served in many different forms, milk forms an important supplement to the diet of every Praxian. They have no superstitions about the mixing of milk and meat, their survival depends intimately on both, and the peaceful cut ensures that no calf taken from its mother dies in a fashion which will distress her and cause her to stop giving milk. Kumis All alcoholic fermented milk drinks of Prax are called Kumis. The technique for making these drinks are no mystery, but the most common is made with horse milk, even though the Kumis made with Zebra milk is even more potent. It has been said that Rhino Kumis made from milk taken in the first days after the birth is the very strongest kumis made in Prax, while others say that Unicorn milk is even more potent as Kumis, even though Unicorn riders don’t make Kumis (allegedly unicorn kumis has been made from the milk of captured unicorns by other tribes, as the unicorn riders will seldom put their precious and intelligent unicorn friends through such an indignity). Thus the conjecture and wild stories persist. Some even say that the strongest Kumis comes from the unknown mount of Jaldon Toothmaker. The lesson here is that drunk people love to speculate about things they will likely never experience. Lassi Simply put, a lassi is drinking yogurt. There are forms of lassi for every type of Prax beast, and the drink is often served with a little salt and lemon in New Pavis where such things can be bought. On Prax, they improvise a sour flavor using the sap of the weed smarting nettle that grows on rocky outcrops. Impala Lippawaha As strange as it may seem, Impala cheese is very palatable. Impalas produce a rich creamy milk full of butter-fats and protein that can be made into a number of delicious cheeses. The most popular Impala cheese however is called Lippawaha, as it was favored even by Waha. It is a rich pale yellow-to-white cheese that is very similar to mozzarella, only able to form longer strands and with less taste of fermentation, and more of a sweet whey flavor that mixes with salt to become very savory and more-ish. Lippawaha is everyone’s favorite cheese and is effectively the "cheddar" of Prax (though arguably it is far nicer than cheddar). Bison Aarul Bison Aarul is a dry curd cheese made from curdled milk that comes in a sweet or sour flavor. Most people prefer to suck on Aarul, letting it slowly hydrate in their mouthes, as then it lasts for longer. Yurts can often be seen with lumps of aarul air-drying on their roof on trays. Aarul is good for healthy teeth and bones and is an important factor in the superior strength of the Bison tribe. Aarul is excellent as a travelling ration, but is also good to cook with. Aarul is named after a young Bison Rider who is said to have slain a Troll death lord with a slung ball of this hard cheese which struck the troll’s temple. To strike a fortuitous blow is often said to be an “Aarul” among the Bison tribe for this reason. Bison Quarg Bison Quarg is a rotted cheese that has a blue mold growing through it. It has a powerful scent, and is said to panic animals that are downwind from it, and remain in a person’s perspiration for three days. This smell is particularly hated by the High Llama Clan who consider quarg and the smell of those who eat it to be barbaric. It is however a great pairing with any red meat, adding a huge piquancy to even the blandest cuts. The bison burger with quarg and Prax cabbage is the new hit of 1626 at Bob’s Bison Burgers in New Pavis for example (albeit at double the price of the standard burger). High Llama Keff High Llama Keff, otherwise known simply as Keff, is a sour, bitey flavored cheese with earthy notes. It benefits from any spice and is excellent for cooking, adding a strong and distinctive cheese flavor to any dish. Even when well dried, Keff remains a soft cheese, becoming like powdery chalk when too dry, rather than hard. When moist it spreads easily, and is a versatile and healthy cheese. Keff doesn’t have a particularly long or short shelf life, and is most popular among the High Llama tribe, who seem to incorporate it into many of their traditional dishes in preference to other cheeses that might taste better. High Llama Tetta Tetta is a washed rind cheese that generally comes in a gourd-shaped blob with a cord around the middle. It is a rich, creamy cheese with a pungent sour butter smell and a roasted nutty taste. It is a versatile cheese with a good shelf-life, and it seems to have a capacity to absorb moisture from even the dry air of Prax without spoiling. Tetta makes an excellent base for a sauce, as well as being rich and flavorsome when eaten on its own. It is also popular to combine Tetta with other cheeses in order to bring out the contrasts and strong points of both. High Llama tribesfolk maintain that Tetta is the best of all cheeses, and in fact has magical properties, much like the milk of their beasts, which can make even equine milk form a cheese. For this reason many of the High Llamas will refer to Tetta cheese as Tetta Khan, and maintain it is superior to Lippawaha. Rhino Kusht Rhino milk is rich when the calf is very young but grows thinner over time as the calf ages. As nursing a baby rhino takes over a year, this means that the baby will generally end up drinking skim milk. Rhino riders generally never deprive a calf of milk, and so don’t make large batches of this cheese, but the technique is no secret, and other tribes know how to make it if they can be bothered, and have a rhino to milk. Rhino cheeses tend to be hard, and one, known as Rhino Kusht is most common, and is a hard ball of pressed dry salted curd that is fibrous and lasts well. Cut into slices or nibbled on in place of pemmican, Rhino Kusht is not generally a good melting cheese as it has low water content. It is generally seen as a warrior’s cheese, and is considered unusual to be seen outside the rhino tribe. Unicorn Garrak Once unusually popular with high caste dragonewts during the city of Pavis’ Empire of the Wyrm’s Friends days, Unicorn garrak has a pale blue rind, and is a firm semi-soft cheese with excellent shelf-life. It is often mixed with local spices, especially skullbush seed powder, as the two complement each other with a pleasant smoky and earthy taste. While one of the rarest cheeses in Prax, Unicorn Garrak is no tastier than a number of others. It does seem to amplify magical healing however, such that it provides a free 1 magic point boost to any spell, such that a healing 1 spell needs to be cast, but costs no magic to use. Few people in Prax outside the Unicorn tribe have ever heard of Unicorn Garrak, despite the fact it isn’t considered a secret. Bastard Ayrag The Pol Joni tribe of horse riders are grudgingly accepted on Prax but invariably called the Bastard Tribe. Horse milk is notoriously hard to make into cheese, but it was discovered by the women of the Pol Joni that with the addition of 10% High Llama milk, the problem could be solved. The bastard ayrag is a soft cheese normally stored in a ball covered in the broad leaves of the Prax Cabbage. It melts well, and can be spread with a measure of force. It has a fizzy note and a pink color and is mildly alcoholic (0.5% by weight). Bastard Ayrag has the problem that it isn’t a long lasting cheese however, and tends to spoil quickly. Impala Trade Cheese One of the problems of Impala Lippawaha cheese was that it didn’t travel as well as it might. As a result, traders would enjoy the product, but never actually consider it as an item they might risk trading for. This was before a mysterious individual from the early years of the Third Age, known only as “Face-bear”, a tall outsider, taught the Impala Pygmies how to make their cheese grow a thick tasty white rind. This greatly increased the shelf-life of impala cheese, and produced a cheese that is highly reminiscent of a high quality wheel of softest, creamiest brie. While the cheese spoils quickly after being cut, it seldom lasts an hour once people taste it. Impala Sweetmelt Impala sweetmelt is closest to Havarti in its character. It is a very soft, sweet cheese that pairs well with fruit, honey and berries and other sweet things. It is also around 1% alcoholic. It is called sweetmelt as it is typically served as a form of fondue for one, having been heated to the point of melting before being served. While not as popular as Lippawaha, it is still a very palatable and desirable cheese. Zebra Smearcase Zebra milk doesn’t make good cheese, even with the addition of High Llama milk. At best it produces a very pink cheese that is at best about has hard as a weak ricotta. It has a very fizzy taste to it and it spoils quickly in the heat of Prax unless loaded with plenty of salt or stored under brine. Generally it is simply smeared onto bread as a paste. For the most part, Zebra riders are more civilized than other Praxians, and less tied to their animals for sustenance due to their relationship with New Pavis and the Big Rubble. As a result, nobody has cried tears of blood about the lack of cheese from zebras, and simply put it down to being some residual anti-horse curse from Waha. It is rare for anyone to seek out Zebra smearcase, except for Halcyon Var Enkorth, Former Governor of New Pavis, who developed a taste for the stuff, and insisted on a pot of it every morning for his daily breakfast. Zebra Kumis While Zebra Smearcase is a disappointing cheese, the same is not the case for Kumis made with Zebra milk. While still pink in color, the fizziness belies a natural culture that takes to the fermentation of alcohol better than any other Prax milk. This brings the alcohol content up to a respectable 7%, which is stronger than many beers. As a result, while Zebra Cheese is a failure, Zebra milk alcohol is a success in Prax, where any decently drinkable hooch that will get you buzzed is considered a bit of a luxury. The best regular supply of Zebra Kumis in New Pavis is called “Stripe”, and is brewed by the Zebra Riders of the Pavis Royal Guard, and generally sold and served in a small faux zebra pattern waterskin.

Good illuminates have the power to drink hemlock.

The whole idea of aquaculture and the merman economy is very under-discussed in Glorantha. I wonder what edible seaweeds are the most nutritious for merfolk? I can see the sheparding of fish schools being a thing too. The main issue is manufacturing of durable tools underwater. We should open a separate topic for this one I think.

Thanks, but Milixia was not a murderhobo. She was the leader of a crime ring with an entrenched criminal enterprise, but she seldom even had anyone killed. She preferred to have them beaten within an inch of their lives, and then charged them for her healing services, and then only if they were already behind on their debt repayments.

They live like queens with fawning admirers in palaces of course.

On the other hand, manatees are known as sea cows, and can produce tasty manacheese. Assuming this isn't April 1st, its a real product.

You are using the wrong model for Sartarites here. They are a wool culture not a flax culture. You need to be looking into wool industry. Interestingly, sheep milk is a very under-reported commodity when moderns investigate the economics of the past. We expect cows to be the primary milk animals, but they often weren't. Milk is actually also dangerous to drink raw as it is the major vector for tuberculosis. It is rendered safe by boiling, and stored by turning it into hard rind cheese.

The restriction seems odd. I mean, the Crimson Bat is the steed of the Red Goddess and she's illuminated...

Milixia was always a pretty bad person. She was an ambitious brat from the squalid alleys of Nochet. Any charity or decency was beaten out of her by Nochet's class war. I always assumed she joined Chalana Arroy because of the social advantages it provided in Esrolia. She couldn't get that far joining Ernalda unless she had the social contacts (which she didn't). It was either Chalana Arroy or Lanbril, so she opted for a bit of column a and a bit from column b. I checked if with my GM if he could cope with me playing a morally reprehensible Chalana Arroy character, and we discussed a number of points about the cult and its restrictions prior to me playing Milixia. In retrospect I think he gave too much ground on what constituted Healer's Protection on sleeped npcs. I don't generally play "bad guys", and Milixia was a memorable change of pace. I got the idea for Milixia many years ago when GMing Borderlands for friends. One of them had a hazia addicted Chalana Arroy girlfriend at Horn Gate. He would visit her when on long range patrol for Raus. The gf did some fairly questionable things over time and it began to dawn on me that a Chalana Arroy could have dimensions most combat oriented characters never really developed. I had seen other players have really greedy Chalana Arroys before, but the notion of a truly morally reprehensible character who traded on favors and cash appealed to me. I didn't expect Milixia to be quite as successful as she was, but I had run the GM through a number of intrigue heavy campaigns in the past, and he really seemed to rise to the occasion. I think he was a little disappointed when we agreed to let Milixia and the boys die.

I had fun playing an evil Chalana Arroy. It's a way to break the stereotype. Her name was Milixia (pronounced Militia) the Deliverer, and she was from Nochet City. She was in Prax to make her fortune on the frontier because everything in Esrolia was sewn up by big families. Milixia had a number of personality flaws. She was a malignant narcissist and something of a psychopath. She was very good at taking people's hopes and dreams and turning them to her own interests. Milixia was utterly greedy, and would generally only offer up her rune magic if promised "a sufficient donation". She went on adventures purely to get money and her attitude to cult duties might be called tithe avoidance... not tithe evasion, mind you. In essence she spent a lot of time seeing how much she could stretch Chalana Arroy cult restrictions without actually breaking them. She was a trader in favors, a loan shark, a book cooker, a drug dealer, a spy, a courtesan, a slaver (or an enthraller, being the term she preferred), and a gossip monger, both a destroyer and repairer of reputations. For example, she had paid for training with the Lhankor Mhy temple to learn alchemy, and picked up enough mathematics to calculate compound interest. Having arrived in New Pavis, she rapidly came to hate it passionately, and realized that she had made a huge mistake and set about acting utterly in her own self interest, as far as her vows allowed. She was a mob boss who ran drugs in New Pavis. She started with a huge pile of Hazia from Rabbit Hat Farm she was told to dispose of, so she figured out the market value and proceeded to sell it. She parlayed this into a pile of money and extended some of the addicts a line of credit, which she then used to turn them into an income stream. There was no known cure for addiction other than cold turkey which was torture, and thus she couldn't perform. Those who couldn't cover their debts were eventually sold into slavery. Naturally she had a number of members of the watch on her payroll, and the other players eventually became her bodyguards. It became a very different game to the one the GM had envisaged. The high point of Milixia's story was when she became the High Priestess of the Horn Gate Chalana Arroys. Ultimately she discovered the Morokanths were going to betray her over slaves she was sending them, and when she set about a pre-emptive strike, things went awry and the party got captured. What was even worse was the fact that the drugs of addiction that she used to keep the other players loyal wore off and they all went into withdrawls while in captivity. The GM was quite prepared to play on from that point with an escape etc, but after a bit of a discussion we decided that this was a fitting and poetic end to Milixia and her gang. She was a source of pitch-black comedy to play, and I had fun coming up with hypocritical excuses for her dreadful actions. Her most famous quote was "A lady always reserves the right to change her mind".

Given that Glowspot is a Crimson Bat Rune Spell, and given that Lunar heroes are illuminated, surely they can simply sacrifice for the spell? I mean, sure, it makes immense sense to have a Lunar HQ that grants this as a power, but given that the Crimson Bat gives this away to associated cults in the pantheon, how necessary is it?

Poetry will not be a craft. Craft is reserved for the making of physical objects, as indeed is the Art skill as written.

Ancestor worship would raise his spirit. The whole measure of forcing the spirit to speak the truth is a moot point. Clever cross-examination may get the spirit to accidentally incriminate himself by, say, losing his cool and ranting out the truth. it is also possible that the spirit, while crazy, is no longer attached to the world and will have no investment in hiding the truth, even if their version of it is a bit demented. Have you seen Rashomon? Kurosawa's take on this story was interesting in that the Ghost had the least coherent narrative of all of the parties involved in his murder. Just a thought...

I ran a game set in New Pavis around the time of the start of the Lunar Occupation where the players all started as kids. There were various "gangs" of kids in various parts of town, and even newtling "kids" who are new bachelor newtlings who hang around the docks. The kids have a trade network for the various odd pieces of junk they find where they barter their toys for other toys or favors, even setting up seven-stage barters where they need to get person A to trade object A to person B so that person B will trade object B to person C etc. ending with then getting the thing they want. It was all very NPC driven, and the point was that the NPCs grew up with the player characters and remained local fixtures, making the players feel more invested in their city and its people as they gradually grew into adults. Kids have: Starting Con & Pow=Maximum rolled. Int, Dex, Cha= 2 points per year until rolled maximum is met. Str & Siz =1 point per year. When players have kids I use the following system to determine their stats Roll D6. 1=Roll a fresh stat. 2=Take worst of Mother or Father's Stat. 3=Take average of Mother and Father's Stat. 4=Take Mother's Stat. 5=Take Father's Stat. 6=Take best of Mother or Father's stat. Yes, but these will be lower. They will increase their rune affinities as they grow with encounters and at least 1 mandatory improvement roll per year. Voria, Teelo Nori, Heler, Yelm the Youth, Trickster etc. Children will seldom be more that lay members of any cult. Richer families may pay for their kids to learn simple spirit healing spells. It is likely that local priests will also be talent scouting the next generation to spot potential new initiates for their deity. Some kids may be chosen for an early initiation if they seem especially gifted. My little Pavic street rats had recently lost their fathers when the Lunars invaded, as they were defending the walls. One of their mothers became ill, and the kids had to figure out how to get healing for her when the Chalana Arroys had fled the city. They also had to figure out how to cover their rent so that they wouldn't save their mother but lose their house. This led to them taking odd jobs such as gathering dog poo for the tanners, carting water, running messages between shops. I also had a combat rule that kids would fight, but whoever took a point of damage had to make a Con x5 roll or burst into tears, thus losing the fight. They lived in terror of the "big kids", who would often chase them and beat them up and steal their best things. Eventually the kids reasoned out that their mother must have some sort of connection with the Elves of the Garden due to her cultivating Narl Flowers on the roof, and so they made a big dangerous pilgrimage to the Garden to seek out their help. They were accosted by a curious Griffin, got into a fight with an opportunistic trollkin who thought they might be easy pickings, and were chased into the garden by mean Praxians who would definitely taken them as slaves. The elves however quickly found the children and after questioning them discovered that their mother was indeed a good friend of the Elves, and so sent the children home with the medicine their mother needed. This was just 1606. They went bartering in Sun County, got involved with local thieves, helped save an injured trickster, and all sorts of mischief. it had a somewhat Tom Sawyer aspect to it, but of course it was set in a dusty bronze age frontier town on the edge of a dangerous and exciting no-mans-land.

It obviously forms a stasis rune.