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Alex

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    Eurmal The Guide subcult?

    in RuneQuest

    Posted · Edited by Alex

    5 hours ago, simonh said:

    "Issaries The Guide" is Issaries title in his Lightbringer aspect, so it might have been a mix up. 

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

    Your Dumbest Theory

    in Glorantha

    Posted

    5 minutes ago, Eff said:

    54*11 is 594. Very close to that 600-year cycle of the Devil's return in King of Sartar...

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

    • Thanks 1

    Confused about the rules on page 246

    in RuneQuest

    Posted

    On 11/21/2021 at 12:40 AM, Rodney Dangerduck said:

    Those "clarifications" allow for "augmenting" a skill with a Passion.  If you allow that, the whole "only one Passion/Rune per scene" limitation goes out the door.  "Oh, I'm not Inspiring, I'm augmenting."

    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:-

    Quote

    No. One passion / rune per scene. No limit on skills augmenting skills.

    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.

    • Thanks 1

    Passions, doing the math

    in RuneQuest

    Posted

    10 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

    but the score ? passion 28% you can do nothing during the play.

    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.)

    10 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

    so how much time, 2 minutes, 20 minutes for all these "feelings", per person ? for me too much for too few impact in the play.

    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.

    Eurmal The Guide subcult?

    in RuneQuest

    Posted

    10 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

    another one I imagine is "understand the incomprehensible".

    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...

    Eurmal The Guide subcult?

    in RuneQuest

    Posted

    35 minutes ago, John T. said:

    Thanks for the replies. It seems that I haven't missed anything.

    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!

    Passions, doing the math

    in RuneQuest

    Posted

    On 11/20/2021 at 8:36 AM, StephenMcG said:

    Not run RQG much so far but I have disliked the passions etc, not as a concept but on how they work at the table.  They add so much rolling for sometimes odd outcomes.

    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.

    On 11/19/2021 at 7:08 PM, French Desperate WindChild said:

    that s why I consider the best way is to remove the pasison, that's a good (or not) memory but nothing more.

    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.)

    On 11/18/2021 at 10:22 PM, PhilHibbs said:

    Sure, you could do that, but that's very much house-ruling in a new mechanic. Sounds like a good one though.

    I'd say it's more of a house-extrapolation of an existing rule.  See p407:-

    Quote

    If someone other than the captive is paying the ransom, the captive must succeed with a Loyalty or Love roll with the relevant community.

      Definitely a special case on exactly these lines.

    Eurmals: bonded, covert, or lynched?

    in RuneQuest

    Posted

    8 minutes ago, Scorus said:

    Jeff has said several times that most Eurmal are stickpickers. I assume that is a general category that includes urban beggars, rag-and-bone men, charcoal carriers, ditchdigger, etc. Poorest of the able-bodied.

    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"...

    What Would Happen if an Initiate of Uleria Got Pregnant?

    in Glorantha

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Ryan Kent said:

    Hmmm... Any other ideas?  I assume Uleria forbids abortions unless chaos is involved, but not sure.

    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?

    • Like 1

    Eurmal The Guide subcult?

    in RuneQuest

    Posted

    45 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

    Yes, Eurmal, the Friend of Men. Guide 215f, 227. Fire-bringing seems to be part of it.

    Eurmal as Guide sounds more like a Lightbringer aspect, though?

    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...

    Your Dumbest Theory

    in Glorantha

    Posted

    28 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

    Most well-known "hsunchen" tribes aren't actually archaic survivals who never learned civilized ways [...]

    Too clever by half, this off-topic! 🙂

    28 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

    - Black Hralf, Weasel Words / Weasel Wisdom

    Dook-dook.  *nods sagely*

    • Thanks 1

    Eurmal The Guide subcult?

    in RuneQuest

    Posted

    On 8/23/2021 at 3:26 PM, John T. said:

    In Six Seasons in Sartar, pg 27, it says that Keladon Blue eye is known to be a member of The Guide subcult of Eurmal.

    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...

    Eurmals: bonded, covert, or lynched?

    in RuneQuest

    Posted

    4 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

    I have a (counter-canonical) idea that there might be "lay-member clowns" - you work your farm all day long until you don the clown costume for a holy day as a welcome way to vent steam/enjoy yourself/perform an important religious function. Then back to the farm afterwards it is.

    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*>

    Eurmals: bonded, covert, or lynched?

    in RuneQuest

    Posted

    20 minutes ago, WindSerpent said:

    A trickster can probably get away with a lot as long as the community only takes turns wanting their heads on a stake....

    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...

    Eurmals: bonded, covert, or lynched?

    in RuneQuest

    Posted

    2 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

    One person in thirty is a trickster? You're not going to have many boring days there, that's for certain!

    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!

    13 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

    But even so... more than 1% of the population are tricksters, in a setting where social control is probably kinda lax. I can't see anything going wrong here!

    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?!"

    42 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

    I'm still struggling to figure out what "socially active" Eurmali people do and how, but one possible way to think about it is to compare them to modern satirists like George Carlin and John Oliver and so on. They come around, mock leaders and rituals and traditions and such, all the while providing insightful commentary.

    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.

    Chalana Arroy, a question or two.

    in RuneQuest

    Posted

    15 minutes ago, WindSerpent said:

    As much fun as it is to imagine them flipping on the switch marked 'DooM Music' for such occasions, it seems plausible that some/most of them look at it differently than that.

    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!

    Eurmals: bonded, covert, or lynched?

    in RuneQuest

    Posted

    2 hours ago, Scorus said:

    What is the canon of how Eurmali are treated in society? In my games, I have assumed that all Eurmals are either bonded, covert (i.e. not publically known as Eurmal), or pretty much lynched (strung up, on the run, tarred and feathered, etc.). That was my interpretation of the KoS description:

    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.

    2 hours ago, Scorus said:

    This seems to be backed up by the RQG initiate requirement: "The initiate must be willing to become an outlaw."

    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.

    2 hours ago, Scorus said:

    So how far off was my 'bonded, covert, or lynched' interpretation? Are there overt, unbonded Eurmali (mostly stickpickers, of course) in every clan who are allowed to go about their business? What percentage of the ca. 1,150 Eurmali in Sartar are bonded? Thanks.

    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.

    3 minutes ago, g33k said:

    I suspect the canonical answer is, "YGWV" and/or "it depends."

    Always part of canon, indeed!

    3 minutes ago, g33k said:

    Recall that Eurmal was one of the Lightbringers, and the LBQ (and several other key Orlanthi myths and rituals) utterly fail for lack of a Trickster.
    If you have no Bonded trickster available... do you just accept failure?

    "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!

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