Alex

Wandering Sun, Jealous Sibling!

It's in the BoHM in a list headed "Forms of Eurmal", so perhaps unoriginal, but doesn't seem like a mix up.

Identical, to within the (zero-to-)one-significant-figure accuracy of prophesy! KoSmaths doubly so. Almost excessively close!

I think the terminology and organisation could stand to be cleaned up a good deal, but I don't see how that's the case. Indeed, the final clarification for that section:- I think the intent is, any time you're "augmenting" with a rune or a passion, use the Inspiration rules. If it's with a skill, use the Augmentation ones, which then potentially get into the whole "time" issue, in cases where that might be a limiting (or helpful) factor.

I just pointed out why that's not the case, with direct quote from the rules, in the very post you're replying to. (Though admittedly specific to Love and Loyalty, in that example. Hate, Fear, etc may not.) I'm all in favour of people streamlining the game when the faff is too much for their tastes. But then I, as with many of us old farts that haven't gone hardcore "OSR", am pretty sympathetic to a lot of the "indie" way of doing things. But some people like every last little bit of detail, and would dislike stuff being handwaved or fiated too much. ("I might need that later!" *hoards every last game-mechanical scrap*) The rules are there to make these assumptions explicit, so my main bias is making exceptions to them explicit, and as systematic as possible.

Or on the other side of an often very fine line, "pretend to understand the comprehensible", and "generate deep-sounding incomprehensiblities". I believe that subcult's often called "the Path of Immanent Mastery", but others are doubtless available...

Yeah, apparently that was factored in, and the PC deliberately ignored and "overcame" that. Which makes me wonder if we're not teetering on the edge of "Are we the baddies?" here, for my personal sensibilities.

Nothing by way of RQ rules for it, at any rate. Nor any clues so heavy it's obvious to me what its rune magic should be. If you're a fan of "old-school" dungeons, "Find Secret Door" might work. Or if your Tricksters trend slightly cartoonish, perhaps finding secret doors were they didn't even exist!

This is something of a recurrent thing in a whole lots of games, for a whole lot things. Typically we get two-to-three different degrees of randomness ("none", "one-off roll", "chained rolls"), and often the rules simply assume a particular one of those for a particular subsystem and situation. So if you find yourself in a "this seems like it could go wrong in theory, but is much less likely to than the baseline case", it can be a bit awks. Likely to continue to be an issue, unless and until someone adds a lots more maths to such things, and in a way that doesn't make people pitch a fit. I disagree. Not all passions are the stuff of epic greatness. Yes, "feeling" is the more generically accurate description, but having two or four categories and as many sets of "verbs" is just extra [body part]ache to very little purpose, IMO. But just because they're -- quite literally! -- un-Inspiring doesn't mean they're redundant. Non-Inspiration uses may be much rarer, but they do exist. Plus of course, a Passion might be low but growing, or just fluctuating and great deal. If a Passion seems to be in a permanent flat spin, or if it's agree it's now narratively redundant, of course it should be removed. Or if it's a more marginal-seeming case, where the spiral isn't necessarily so clearly inevitably downwards, perhaps giving the player the option to reduce it by 10% (or 5%, or 20%...) per season to reflect a decision on their part to be studiedly indifferent during their downtime. Cue kin pleading with the hard-hearted PC to mend their ways! (Maybe.) I'd say it's more of a house-extrapolation of an existing rule. See p407:- Definitely a special case on exactly these lines.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PityTheKidnapper And any further "philosophy degree" or "annoying academics" jokes to taste.

At its most general, I suspect it's essentially a shorthand for "anyone with a ransom under 200L (but above 0)". Or arguably below 150L, depending which you feel is the more disparaging term, "stickpicker", or "philosopher"...

For the reasons g33k mentions, the circumstances here sound rather... chaos-adjacent. Though I'd be more concerned with player-agency and player-consent in the first instance, given that subject matter. But what sort of idea are you looking for exactly? If there's a particular sort of outcome you're looking to rationalise -- or preclude -- rather than just blue-skying an outcome from the premise?

I'm assuming that's at ten different locations. "Mine is the one true Eurmal temple." "No, mine!" "Heretics!!"

Strike, Group Laughter, and Lie, and Orlanth's Stolen Flying Boots should clearly all be mutually stackable!

Well, they're connected, clearly. Or potentially connected, at least: there may be multiple conflicting and connected myths. Though as I read the text of "The Firebringer" aspect in the same book, it does seem to imply the two are connected for the Orlanthi. Though if you read the myths sequentially, as (if they were) history, then that'd make him the Fire-Bringer-Backer...

Too clever by half, this off-topic! 🙂 Dook-dook. *nods sagely*

There's a short paragraph in The Book of Heortling Mythology, which suggest it's directly to do with the Lightbringers' Quest. I'm not at all sure what this Tricksterino's rune magic could be, or even quite how he fits into the narrative of the LBQ. Thematically, it sounds rather like the type of guide that knows just enough to lead you into the worst possible sort of trouble, but doesn't have a clue as to how to get you back out of it...

I think that's a strong possibility, and I could argue it's not necessarily counter-canonical. Though I won't as I'm not hugely invested in that either way, and it might be begging to be told otherwise. But it could work by being "secret", whether an open one or an actual one, or by hiding in plain sight. "No, of course I'm not really a Trickster, I'm just helping out with the ritual, due to the generous Lightbringers cult Eurmali Development Grant available for this very purpose!" <*stacks up more points of Trickster rune magic on the fly*>

This is true, there's one or two hundred clans in Sartar... surely can't all be mad at you at once? Actually, they likely can, but those are the occupational hazards! You super-critted your comedy stylings, which it turns out is much the same as a hyper-fumble for life expectancy purposes! If it comes to it, Lie, flee, and as the BBC would say, other kingdoms are available...

As LA says, surely more like one in 75, or about 1.4%. The 5K But seems a little high to me too. I kinda get the impression it was arrived at via a sort of Equal Rites logic of treating the 'minority' cults somewhat similarly. My impression prior to that was that it was more of a special case. Relatively few initiates, largely sustained by lots of "collateral worship", in one form or another. OTOH, the "customarily protected clown" role makes sense to me too and works as a shiny new thing we didn't know about before. So maybe this is just niggling over whether there's some notional distinction between Low Entertainer Clowny "lay tricksters" and Big Bad Scary Eurmali -- an Illusionary and Disorderly rigorous distinction in initiatory statuses, definitely checks out! To continue the Producers trope from the threads discussing having tithe 150% of your income to the three different cults you joined, "... where did I go right?!" Yeah, no doubt there's a range of related niches: clown, fool, jester, bard, skald. I can't help but think of the line in A Thousand Ships where Penelope is musing about whether she should have a wandering poet flogged for his insolence. What I haven't quite internalised yet is what "customarily protected clowns" do with their downtime. Wearing the Halloween Prisoner Costume and snarking full-time sounds... exhausting. Do these individuals have day jobs they go back to? Whether normal-normal, or "low entertainer" allied crafts normal. If they do, how safe are they from Greg's aforementioned "murderous idiots"? Conversely, if someone's moonlighting between the "benign" aspects of Trickster (Clown, Fool, Jester) and the more (capital-)crimey ones (like Seducer of the wrong people, Destroyer or Thief of the wrong things, Murderer, etc), I suspect the codpiece isn't complete protection if the covert basis they're doing that on gets rumbled.

Did you have a differently-from-that in mind? Please do share! If it's a little half-baked don't worry, we can workshop it!

Excessively obvious use of the Lie rune magic, only worked on me for 12 SR. (I refuse to comment on how many pies to the face or instances trousers falling down occurred in that melee round.)

It seems we're getting a change from the "most tribes lynch anyone proven to be a trickster", though if you define "canon" as "what's in print and on the list", one could argue we're somewhat "pre-canonical" on that, if you want to be especially cautious. That is, as I see you observing yourself in another thread, somewhat open to interpretation: it's a contingency, not necessarily an inevitability, and outlawry itself doesn't necessarily mean execution. Apparently it's now more 'bonded, covert, enjoys customary protection when ritually clowning, or lynched'. With the option of combining the third and fourth cases, by way of scapegoating, or perhaps the aforementioned murderous idiots deciding they have some leeway between 'custom' and 'law'. And maybe #2 and #3 if there's a secret identity involved -- after all, that mask and all that illusion magic can be the useful for something! Specifically, see this interesting additional nugget: Whether those will ever get spelled out as percentages is another matter. Always part of canon, indeed! "Trickster volunteers, take one step forward!" "Now, purely hypothetically and out of curiosity... Volunteers for a Lightbringers Quest? Or a fatal scapegoating?" I'm also reminded of stories of someone being baptised, made a deacon, priest, bishop and then pope all on the one day. Now'd be the perfect time to... induce a Trickster to accept being bound to you!

Dogs can initiate to the Glutton subcult automatically without any test, by the sacrifice of 1 point of POW (if even). Not called "wolfing down" for nothing! "Focused, relentless -- tasting absolutely nothing!"

Galadriel is gonna really sue your arse. In the very best case outcome. 🙂