Alex

4 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

No you had it right. Shield Attacxk was in the appendix. Not there was much incentive to do so.

Good to know there's some functional memories in there from the late 70s...  albeit not very personally useful ones!

1 minute ago, Atgxtg said:

Probably not that likely to happen though as 2H weapons usually have a low SR modifier. 

Less likely to, hence my sly specification of "high DEX".  And pity the poor STR 10 Babeester cultist using a Battle Axe 2H'd.  Or against other people with 2H weapons, I suppose, but then we're really getting into glass hammer territory.

Probably a rule I'd just ignore in actual play, as if people start using it as a game-mechanical tactic that's not adding anything to the fiction, that's not a good thing.  That you only have one "pool" of weapon hitpoints you have to double-dip into for attacks and for parries is likely sufficient downside.

29 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Nothing in the starter set is intended to be a change to the RuneQuest rules. If there are differences then they are either mistakes or simplifications.

Be useful to know which is which!  But understandably, David is going to want to keep as streamlined a "Q&A" thread as possible, perhaps especially with a view to fast-tracking any that fall into the "corrections for the next printing" stream, so a long list of "is this SB and CB difference deliberate?" isn't going to be very helpful to that.  But if we compile a separate list of such differences -- say, here! -- then they can perhaps subsequently triage them into "CB corrections", "SB corrections", "deliberate simplifications", and perhaps the ever-popular bonus category of, "not an actual difference at all, gaze at it harder until you get an Illumination tick".

3 hours ago, Baron Wulfraed said:

Which is also true of RQ2 and RQ3 as well. No change there. If you are using a shield, at all, you had a Shield skill to apply to that use.

Don't quote me on this as a) it was a loooooong time ago, and b) we might well have been playing it "wrong", but I was sure Shield Attack was a separate skill, back in the (RQ2) day!

While I've played RQ3 a fair bit more recently, have no memory whatsoever of how that was handled...

10 hours ago, Mugen said:

But RQG made a step in the wrong direction, as you now need two skills when using a shield, whereas you only need one when using the same weapon to attack and parry.

That's only a great "skill economy" saving if you're using a 2H weapon, which has a significant tactical downside.  And a bigger one if your high-DEX enemies start to SoI "I delay my attack to the same SR as the PC with greatsword so they can't parry."  The biggest upside in RQG is for people dual wielding 1H weapons, but then you're back to needing two separate skills.

9 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

They could have had Metabolist or Fractal influences long before the 20th Century?!

Interesting, didn't know about the former.

As you say, it's a magical world.  Rock out with your schlock out!  As well as the "daft dwarf" wildcard rationale, in addition to the most direct influences -- Hendriki, Esrolian, and Esvulari styles -- bear in mind this is the Holy Country.  So if you want something especially hippy-trippy space-metal that's jarringly different from the local style, you can just invoke "oh, Belintar had that made according to his own personal specification".  As no doubt revealed in a dream, or according to some secret magical scheme.

Presumably these would be concentrated in Durengard and maybe Backford, but they might pop up sporadically anywhere, other than in the most diehard anti-GK places.

1 hour ago, Bren said:

I think the Humakti's greatsword will not automatically be allowed.

Or conversely, maybe that's a special-case exception.  Then:-

• You don't need to tell the Humakti "no greatsword!"; and
• Everyone else has a convenient visual signal of who the Humakti is. 🙂

... not like it's generally hard to tell.

1 hour ago, Bren said:

I'm hoping to summon the collective wisdom of the group.

Tomorrow night, the players characters are to attend a feast in Clearwine hosted by Queen Leika Black Spear. I know the player of the Humakti will want a sword, but is that culturally acceptable or is it unacceptable?

Jeff commented on a related question quite recently, though in the slightly different case of a public space in tribal land.  So in that case, short answer is yes, but not routinely armed and armoured to the teeth.  I'd guess the "hosting a feast" case is similar, except that courtesy presumably involves acceding to the reasonable wishes of the particular steadholder... to a point.

1 hour ago, Bren said:

Does this vary based on the rank of the guest or attendee?

Apparently so, though I'm unclear if there's a formal set of "rules" for this, or it's more like a matter of ostentatious display.  I, a rich farmer, have this fine sword with a fancy pommel, and I note you, a raggedy-arsed hunter, arrived with much more basic-looking weaponry.

1 hour ago, Bren said:

Is it different for a guest vs. a fellow clan/tribe member?

I think in theory almost necessarily, in that you don't "Greet" people from your own clan in the same way (and in a fairly formalised manner for people in the same tribe).  Your kin are definitely entitled and expected to be armed on your -- and hence their -- own tula.  I practice I'm not sure if there's a customary difference:  the Greeting rather anticipates people remaining armed, given the ritual undertaking not to attack one's hosts.

1 hour ago, Bren said:

Would the protocol be the same for something hosted by a clan chieftain?

What if the host is someone less exalted, e.g., a a thane, steadholder, or simple farmer?

In principle much the same, but the status of the host obviously has a big practical effect of who they can invite, who'd actually come if they did, and what they can practically insist on guests doing, if they were to do so.  If the simple farmer is Poor, or a renter (I assume those are strongly correlated,, if maybe not quite synonymous), presumably it's their patron that's officially hosting, so calls any shots there is to be called.  (I'm not sure if it's canonically common for hunters, sheep-herders, etc, that might logically live away from the main agricultural area to have their own modest "holdings" direct from the chief (or Earth temple, etc), rather than from some richer Free Farmer type.)

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

This is the Bronze Age, so only viable children may be regarded as worth giving birth to. Uleria might have some secret ritual magic to re-absorb non-viable offspring.

"Life begins at first Breath" would be an especially "Hardcore Orlanthi" take, if one wanted to take a maximalist approach in the other direction...

37 minutes ago, Darius West said:

Yes, I can't really accept that the Goddess of Love and bearer of the Life rune would be okay with abortion, as it sort of runs counter to her gifts.

"Bearer of the Life rune" seems a little over-worked, for me.  As Greater Gods go, she's very small beer these days.  If she's notionally the same as the Celestial Court divinity, she's farmed out a lot of the heavy-lifting, especially to various Earth goddesses.  Of the three third-of-a-lemon minor subcults welded lightly together) yes, one of them is on those lines.  (Going by the RQ3 writeup, CoG might vary from that in either direction.)  Though Reproduce very much seems to assume a willing "target".  Community, Erotocomatose Lucidity, and the Courtesan skill aren't really concerned with that at all.

37 minutes ago, Darius West said:

Prevention is another matter entirely, and I'm sure that she's fine with giving her worshippers some power over when they conceive and with whom.  The idea being that sylphium is not just an abortifacient but an actual contraceptive if taken prior according to some of what I have read.

Yes reputedly both, as I understand it.  Not medically verifiable due to lack of much in the way of double-blind randomised clinical trials at the time, and as it's not known what it was (or is).  But on the face of it plausible if it was oestrogenic and taken in sufficient quantities.  Mythically it's a gift from Apollo -- surely a major Life Rune deity in anyone's money.  (After a little bit of alternate-reality currency exchange, admittedly.)

However, what's "another matter entirely" is...  another matter entirely!  Gloranthan deities aren't known for their 'you have have "some power", but not too much approach.  If rampant fertility is a Ulerian cult virtue, are her priestesses (of that particular subcult) being impious by using birth control?  And are we reasoning from Bronze-Age knowledge and sensibilities?  Or from high fantasy runic-deterministic ones?  Because those might be very different.  Is the sharp dividing line between prior and "emergency" contraception?  Or between before conception and after?  Or before implantation, and after that?  (The most usual scientific definition being the last of these, but even that's rather variable.)  Before we even get into historical concepts like "quickening" or other such notions of late-breaking ensoulment.  And I mention this not out of any interest in arguing which is the "correct" take, but to point out what a sensibilities minefield that potentially is, too.

37 minutes ago, Darius West said:

As to the whole "made her pregnant without her consent" bit, well, that is generally called an accidental pregnancy and isn't considered rape.

I believe UK case law would disagree with you there, where this is a deliberate act contrary to the wishes of the other party.  I'll grant you that concerned "stealthy" condom-removal and not non-consensual use of fertility magic, so the comparison isn't exact.  But that's inevitably true in both directions.  Given that the PC "very interested in invoking Storm Bull during the "ritual" and having little Storm bull babies", I don't believe this is accurately describable as "accidental" in any way.  Whether it teeters over into "chaotic" one might argue either way.

37 minutes ago, Darius West said:

As to Stormbull, remember that he raped Thed while pretending to be Orlanth, and Ragnaglar was their brother who went to the "Sex pit" during their initiations.  Retcon as we may, it is all in the literature.

I've not suggested any retconning of those matters.  (Indeed, just the opposite, though the least said about that other thread...)  Not that there's one single "definitive" myth in the publication history either.  CoT doesn't have any version of this at all.  I'm not sure off the top of my head which telling of the Thed myth you're referring to, but it sounds within the range of variation.  KoS refers to "[Orlanth's] brother", and I think the phrase "sometimes called the kinsman of Storm Bull" could be hinting at the same thing.  Or implying Ragnaglar is more closely related to Urox than to Orlanthi (a full rather than a half brother, perhaps?).  Or this is the Orlanth-cult version of the tale, and "kin of Storm Bull" is more palatable than "of Orlanth".  And the myth are undoubtedly multiple even (or especially) in Glorantha.

My questions are rather, is this something people really want to foreground in play?  And especially, is this something we want to portray as being fine, dandy, and attracting no adverse consequences?  And what exactly is the OP seeking input on, anyway?  How grimdark their table experience is, and quite how tough a gig it might be for NPCs, is of course entirely up to them.

If one is looking for some Lore options to tone this down a tad, note that the Storm Bull has a whole lot of "seducer" form.  So obtaining the prior consent of the Ulerian (or more dubiously, getting it after the fact) is a mythically congruent choice.

5 hours ago, Ironwall said:

personally im leaning towards more horses in a hide than a hide of cows but anyone else have ideas

In theory that'd be the case, as a raw grass::guilder$ calculation.  But I think there are some constraints on that:-

• There's not bottomless demand for horses, [supply/demand curve go here].
• Horses are much "pickier" eaters.  That plays up to the "flighty notions of themselves" stereotype, but I think there's likely also a biological basis to it.  Cows are 'true' ruminants, whereas horses have somewhat cobbled together the means of digesting grass from a few random gastro-intestinal spare parts.  So you need better land overall, or to supplement with oats, etc, as Jörg says, which in turn needs arable land, or a very large amount of land for them to roam to "pick and choose" on (and infill with sheep or cows).
• They're more labour-intensive.  So you have to have the people, and you have to feed them, too.
• Relatedly, they're more skill-intensive.  They're less robust (vets bills!), but more importantly you need skilled input to breed and train them, to whatever degree.  So if you want a crunchy "Sacred Time phase" for this, I'd look to make it a high-variance "swingy" ability roll, with the possibility of making big money, or losing your shirt.

5 hours ago, Ironwall said:

you cant shear a horse for wool 

We must have too many Trickster threads here, as I couldn't read that without hearing "challenge accepted!" somewhere in my head.

1 hour ago, Erol of Backford said:

So my early thoughts on southern Spain may be OK, see tab 01 of this thread? I'd love to use examples of architecture where I have visited. I have the Guide and will reference the populations.

Well, first and foremost YGWV, and after all this is a "personal runequest campaign"-tagged thread, so why the heck not?  Though I understand and sympathise with the impulse to keep tonal consistency with official publications, especially for purposes of actually using the art in play.

My own take would be that the "chronologically latest" analogues would be to the Late Classical era, and those would generally be located in the West, or in places under very direct and heavy Malkioni influence.  There might be quite a sharp distinction between "old Esvulari" and "new-build Malkonwal" looks, insofar as the latter ha much of a chance to do much.  Lots of emergency fortifications, perhaps?  But conversely something might just happen to be a look that fits anyway, even if it's wildly anachronistic in 'model' terms.

If you want something overtly medieval or otherwise glaringly out-of-place, my suggestion would be to do it anyway, but to lampshade it with a rationale for why.  The city architect was crazy.  Or Mostali.  Or both.

7 hours ago, icebrand said:

Thed is a powerful goddess. She willingly cooperated with two other powerful gods to destroy reality. This destruction isn't a Thanos snap, but a horrible conflict where chaos devours everything. Yeah, she got raped either before or after... or in the middle of it. Who cares? If anything, she got off easy and is still a blight upon the world, unlike ragnalar and the devil.

Thed's "power and importance" is pretty much related entirely to the significance of her myth.  Which is precisely that she was victimised in a horrific crime -- the very one that's central to the (allegedly irredeemable) evil of the Broos, let's recall -- was denied justice when she asked for it, out of Orlanthi clannish nepotism and callous indifference, and that this blew back in the most atrocious way imaginable.  If you swap around the causality there, apply retrospective victim-blaming, or who-cares the whole thing, it entirely empties a key myth of any meaning whatsoever.  And strikes at the very laws that it underpins.  Rape is a capital crime, but not if the survivor is subsequently determined to be unworthy?  Justice is a key virtue, but-but-but?

It's an uncomfortable part of the setting for me as it is, but this rereading of it is by no means an improvement, personally speaking.

9 minutes ago, icebrand said:

Nice plan by the way... But i have a better one!!! 

Just run them through with a spear! [...]

It's a more standard one and a more immediately doable one, no question.  But is it "better" overall?  I mean in Glorantha, which is the better play experience is obviously wildly subjective.

9 minutes ago, Beoferret said:

Oh, that's an interesting angle! I tend to think that a broo cleansed of Chaos taint would end up having their bits and pieces magically changed (just like they'd lose a mouth on their stomach or a tentacle arm) so that they'd reproduce in a standard mammalian P in V kinda way.

Apparently Greg didn't think so:  "I do not think that physical change would accompany the spiritual transformation."  Now of course YGWV, and of course the key word here may be "accompany":  it seems clearly possible to do the two as separate steps, if needed.  Of course the key change would be less to do with getting a P that'll fit in a V as that the "embryo" acts in that manner, as opposed to a parasitical one.

31 minutes ago, Beoferret said:

Some leaders are looking for a way to tame a local broo menace without having to spend lots of blood and treasure.

Also it seems the cosmologically consistent thing to do if you see the Broos as (in part) victims, and not (purely) as perps.  Which be -- for instance, and as I understand it -- kinda the attitude that occurs in Lunar philosophy.  If it's indeed a "cycle of abuse", why on earth would continuing it ever more vigorously, somehow expecting to get suddenly better results, if that's actually just perpetuating it?

31 minutes ago, Beoferret said:

Etc. And there could be the fun challenge of successfully warding off any Storm Bulls who catch wind of the plan without ending up as enemies of the entire cult (or accused of Chaos taint.)

Not an issue for the Lunars, who'd see the average Storm Bully as exactly an embodiment of the problem (and who think that of them anyway).

3 minutes ago, icebrand said:

My regular-ass, so feral that doesn't even speak Broo reproduce like that. They "just" eat the regular people, but will only sex them under extreme circumstances when no more attractive prey (like a cow) is available.

Yes, I assume that's the most common case for "all" Broo.  Hence all the horns, after all.  Livestock are much easier victims, so unless there's some behavioural compulsion (cosmic revenge?) or biological need (keeping the species INT score up?), attacking humans is mainly there for the player-facing body horror element, I think.  Or I guess at least -- I'm the furthest thing away from being any sort of expert on the horror genre.  So going "incomplete-creature-based" is a very modest concession, overall.

4 minutes ago, Ladygolem said:

My variation on broo is mostly inspired by Warhammer's "legally distinct" versions of them - the Gor or "Beastmen". In that setting they're more the result of a sort of chaotic cattle plague that turns beasts to men and vice versa.

I'm only vaguely familiar with the WH(FRP) setting, but that's kinda hilarious.  Sounds like to avoid being stung for "borrowing" a particular idea from Glorantha, they took about three different ones, and smooshed them together!  Broos, Beastmen (OK, that one is pretty generic -- Greek myth is definitely out of copyright!) and the Survival Covenant!

13 minutes ago, icebrand said:

Well, if we get technical that could be a warcrime hahahaha

Please do, I'm not following the 'technicality' being appealed to here.

Do you mean by changing the Broos forcibly, without their own consent?  Note that the "easier" -- i.e. slightly less impossible -- way to do such a quest would be a first establish it, and then to allow individuals to "opt in" by following the same path.  Sorta the Hero Cult model, essentially.  As opposed to having to make a POW vs POW roll against an entire species, as it were.  (Exact RQ rules in the post, I assume.)

6 hours ago, Beoferret said:

Quick question that has some bearing on this discussion. If broo are cleansed of Chaos taint, do they still reproduce the same way?

Plus of course there's the "vegetarian vampire" model:  'civilised' broo than don't force themselves on sentients, but still reproduce "the same way" but exclusively with animals.  After all, they're "not people", merely "property", so with a little bit of sophistry and ignoring how horrific that process still is, that'd work for some.  "You want to kill and eat animals just out of dietary preference;  for us, it's either using animals or genociding ourselves."

58 minutes ago, Frp said:

Scrolling through this thread all I can imagine is creating a broo with complex and profound motivations taking a critical firearrow right in the bean, mere moments after it's introduced. 

Talking of the SoloQuest, having played through it a handful of times reminds me that's very much RuneQuest Situation Normal. 

1 hour ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

I think that the best way in glorantha is to follow Jeff's post about honour, shared by the different war gods (note that is not my favorite concept to have one honour definition for all the gloranthan people, I would prefer some opposition, but the canon is the canon, if I use something else, I will not share it as "the law")

Hypothetically I'd agree with you, but there's enough wiggle-room in the "personal honour" in the RQG RAW that I think it works in the context of the six homelands -- arguably more like 3.5 different "cultures" looked at a little more broadly -- explicitly in scope.

And of course the law for what's honourable isn't necessarily all that close to what's the law for the law.  For example, in the SB SoloQuest,

2 hours ago, Beoferret said:

Quick question that has some bearing on this discussion. If broo are cleansed of Chaos taint, do they still reproduce the same way?

Good question.  If a somewhat horrifying one, but that's Situation Normal for this thread.  Rather comes with the territory.  I can think of a few possibilities:-

• Complete Chastity and Celibacy.
• Able to reproduce via (different) magic, in the manner of the Orlanthi and Ernaldan pantheon rune magics we've already seen.
• Turned all the way back to "regular" Beast People, vaguely like a Satyr (only not, as they both hotly insist).
• There are evidently different paths to Cleansing, so presumably they have different precise outcomes, and very possibly also different "depths" you can follow each quest to.

2 hours ago, icebrand said:

By war crime i mean:

- Intentionally killing civilians (unarmed broo in this case)

- killing prisoners or giving no quarter

- torture

- taking hostages

- destroying civilian infrastructure

- perfidy, rape, pillaging

- using child soldiers

- using magic of mass destruction / chemical warfare (dropping poison or acid in a dungeon room for example)

I'm reasonably capable of googling what "war crime" means;  my question was about what you were proposing to be "fair game" for these purposes.  The "rape" example would be especially unfortunate in this context, for example.  After all, it's also on your "HARD NO" list, as well as the Orlanthi capital crimes, and things that'll spontaneously Taint the perp.

Actually, I'm back to being slightly in two minds about the "torture" example, too.  I'm not sure if Greg ever included it on any of his schedules of "%age chance of involuntary initiation to Chaos", but if one were so inclined, Ikadz definitely fits the bill...

2 hours ago, icebrand said:

How does cleansing work? I vaguely remember reading about cleansing but you died in the process (may not be that way, read it a long ago).

Not sure if it's ever been spelled out in detail, but the RoC's Cleansed One's description says his is "not as deadly" as other Praxian methods.  So maybe that one is 99.99% fatal, and the others are 100% fatal -- could be read a number of ways.

2 hours ago, icebrand said:

Also, don't Broo have the chaos rune as part of their being? It's one thing to cleanse someone who got tainted, another to cleanse someone who IS chaos, am i too far off ?

Possibly.  OTOH it might be a little bleak to say that someone can deliberately commit some chaotic act, and then later be cleansed of it, but that the "original sin" of being born a Broo is utterly indelible.  As well as possibly "uncanonical" -- though of course YGWV, MGWV, in strange aeons even Canon itself WV.

Plus of course as well as the magical task of removing the taint/affinity, there's the social one of getting people to let you continue to live afterwards...

1 hour ago, icebrand said:

I just figured out they are not people (in the legal sense) because i don't see any culture punishing an individual that does wrong by a Broo. Like, you would get congratulations for stuff that would get you exiled/imprisoned/executed if you do that on humans; like, if you tell your thane you hunted down a Broo, and killed it with extreme violence while making it suffer as much as possible, i don't think you are getting reprimanded, more like the thane buys you dinner...

This is a little more precise than your OP, and I think helpfully so.  Can a Sartarite kill a Broo without legal consequence?  Sure, unless by some mischance they're members of a clan they have some formal relationship with.  Or it's during the Occupation, and the Broo is a Lunar citizen.  (Crucifixions all round.)  But the threshold there is "Outlaw" rather than "not a person".  Torture?  I imagine so, it's not a capital crime, and in the circumstances described clearly not being secret murder either.  If you're an Uroxi or a Uran, probably this is indeed seen as commendable.  Or at least, no one dares say otherwise to their face.  Apply a tick to "Hate Chaos", gloss over or glory in the details according to your table's established preferences and tolerances.

Did you have any other particular "war crimes" in mind?  Or Gloranthan legal standards to judge them by?

2 hours ago, icebrand said:

then you'll have your GM (me)

Assumes facts not in evidence.  I think this discussion might be a little less heated if various parties (not just you, to be fair!) weren't preemptively pulling rank with the "it's my game and you're disinvited" trope, as several have pretty much done.  And bear in mind you started the thread, and explicitly as a question.  Don't be too surprised at getting answers.

2 hours ago, icebrand said:

Rape, disease, cannibalism are HARD NO and you will end up turning into monster

Two of those are Orlanthi capital crimes, one is not.  (Granted cannibalism has appeared in various "will fester chaos" checklists, but likely also forms part of human sacrifice, as occasionally practiced.  Then there's cases like herdman meat.  Ogre-grade cannibalism is presumably seen as an especially odious form of secret murder.)  Overall, I'm not quite clear where you're drawing the "war crime but fair game" and "HARD NO" boundary.

37 minutes ago, icebrand said:

"The term survivor often refers to [...]

Variant bolding added.  I'm not sure it's useful to regard it as a term that has to be deemed by others to have been "earned", or that can on a similar basis can later be "lost".  Indeed, the very next sentence from the source you excerpted in mid-paragraph is "The best way to be respectful is to ask for their preference."  Quite a stretch to get there from "most definitely NOT" it seems to me.

37 minutes ago, icebrand said:

She's a rape victim, but considering her moral caliber and actions she's most definitely not a rape survivor... Like c'mon man, this is one of the most evil gods there is, she's worse than 90% of the chaos pantheon, she's not some tragic dude thats stuck in a cycle of abuse, she's a POS that willingly entered and continues the cycle, which gives her power.

You agree there's a cycle of abuse.   Canonically, it didn't start with her.  How is that functionally different?  Likewise, insisting that she's an irredeemably bad "victim" -- unto the infinityth generation -- not a "survivor" seems to me to be a fairly vague exercise in definism and dysphemism.

3 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

what I m not sure is if there is any non chaotic possibility to destroy a spirit. you can reduce its pow, but is it able to destroy it for ever ?

I did wonder in what sense you meant "destroy".  I ended up you likely didn't mean "annihilate utterly", but I might be biased by living in Ireland, where "destroy" can mean "have rumpled those soft furnishings".  Yes, AFAIK you'd need chaos or some high-end mystical powers to do that.  (The former, that is.  I can manage the latter with a Casual use of my Slouch skill.)  So I'm assuming what they do is indeed to defeat it in spirit combat, then after that let it wend on its merry way, whatever that is.

6 hours ago, Ludo Bagman said:

CA has special cult spirits, namely healing spirits whose number one priority (without Command Cult Spirits) is to attack disease spirits. If they win the spirit combat, the disease spirit is also "healed" and transformed into a normal disembodied spirit (and vice versa).

Ah, there we go, that's a neater and more definitive resolution.  I couldn't find anything covering this in the RQGCB, is there more detail elsewhere?

7 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

- CA cultists must heal people, so they have to eject disease spirit, they don't need to destroy them

I think this is in the realm of "can't kill 'em if they're already dead" (or were never alive).  If a spirit is a remnant Soul Part or Breath of a formerly embodied being, the Healer is doing the right thing by sending from from the Inner World to their final reward.  If they're just manifestations of the particular disease itself, then fighting and "killing" them is part of the mission statement.