Alex

10 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

Actually in my proposal I use the same technique those 18th century longitude projects used:  i rely on a unique celestial observation as the synchronizing method.  In this case not the transit of Venus across the sun, but instead Yelm's daily emergence from the underworld.

That was one of the methods applied, yes.  I dunno why that'd seem any less anachronistic than the split-minute precision steam-driven clockworkpunk one, though!  Indeed, presumably you'd need to combine the two, since you don't want to make your observations at Yelmrise (angle = zero, not a very useful surveying triangle), but at some precisely defined later time of day.  And you don't want to do that celestialogically, otherwise you have no independence of your assumptions and measurements at all.

10 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

I do not assume that Yelm follows the same exact schedule from day to day.

Prudent, as canonically he does not!

9 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

Given a flat Glorantha, sunrise should be simultaneous all over the lozenge.  

For me, that seems unlikely to be the case, for exactly the same reasons as with the horizon problem.  Your horizonless Glorantha will presumably vary.

3 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

If your Glorantha doesn't include blurry dating, and divergent events, and heroes nobody else has heard of, you are canonically Doing It Wrong.

Canon is canonically wrong!  Gain +1D3 Illumination chance, or reasonable facsimile.  May or may not include Draconic Consciousness or spontaneous Trickster devotion, check local availability.

On 10/21/2021 at 8:51 AM, coffeemancer said:

Hm, I think you are on to something. I am thinking of the event in KoDP where two strangers approach the clan asking for shelter and you can ask for someone to sponsor them as guests (or take them as guests in the chiefs household) and later you can adopt them (if you offered to adopt them in the first meeting).

That's an interesting question, what's someone formal status if they've been "Greetinged" up to "Duty".  That being restricted to "only those who would sit close to me, in my family".  Now doubtless this might mean the duty to do the washing up, or similar to the way Lightbringer's Challenges and the like work.  To which of course the answer is likely "formal, schmormal".  But if you're de facto "adopted" by a particular family, then you're also kinda-sorta in the clan too, until somebody with more clout says otherwise.  Which could happen very rapidly, if someone feels the newcomer is out of place, is an economic burden on others, or the adopting family have overstepped the mark, etc.  If they don't, work your way up in formality from there.

Some milestones would be...

• Is this person an adult human, according to Orlanthi custom?
• Cult initiation may not be required as such, but if yes, and their initiatory status is magically valid, then this pretty much takes care of the previous matter.  If not, then why not -- some sort of wandering layabout slacker and drifter, or what?
• The newcomer wishes to do something pretty specifically only open to a clan member, like say vote in the wapentake.  They'll want to have either tidied away some formalities by that point, or else made it so thunderingly obvious that their right is approved by acclaim.
• Initiation to the wyter -- as FDWC very correctly says, that's a pretty clearcut in-or-out thing.  So the question is, at what point can and at what point must this occur?

And as Jörg says, marriage is a possible parallel and precedent.  Do husbands and wives participate strictly "in the right of their spouse", by way of the ritual formality of the marriage itself?  What then if they're widowed or divorced, and remain on-tula (for whatever political, social or practical reason).  Is there a process for them to "re-up" to the clan?

58 minutes ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

But estimating the size of Glorantha from celestial observations is still possible:   You have a flat world, and would need simultaneous observations of the sun as it goes though the sky:  Eatimate  east-west distances by measuring the two acute angles of the right triangles formed by the western point A, the sun, and the eastern points B and C.

Bear in mind what a huge deal it was in the RW to have even synchronised time, much less to be able to do simultaneous observations.  There were government projects to solve to longitude problem in the 18th century -- and think how annoyed people get about medieval, dark age, or even iron age tech or cultural tropes!  Ah yes, you say, but in Glorantha, we have magic to solve such minor problems.  To which I counter, no, we have magic to magic them infinitely worse!  The angles of a Sky World triangle add up to...  whatever Yelm says they do.  Personally, I don't think this method would work at all IMG, YGWV.

Does magical surveying in general help?  I'm happy to assume it does quite a bit.  Historical maps suck.  If you gave your players bronze-age accuracy maps as their best reference, you'd be beaten (very slowly) with them until you saw the error of your ways.  Gamers like a good map, and an authentically bad map is in many ways more work to produce!  Who wants to made a cartographic rod for their own back?

10 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

MOB (or someone else from the Chaosium crew, it's been a while) made a post a while ago explaining that Glorantha had a horizon and how it worked, I'll see if I can find it.

That'll be this one, I think:  

Definitely true IMG!  ... true that Clement Longhair will tell you that's the case. 🙂

The distinction between "Glorantha is billiard-table flat but looks curved because light is homesick" and "flattish but curved" is soooo slight in practice that unless you're a Mostali professor of long-distance surveying, it's a matter of which version (or some other) rings the most true for you.  (If you are a Mostali professor of long-distance surveying, pick a side, and then conduct a low-motion flame war with your nemesis, who is of course the leading Mostali professor of long-distance surveying who favours the other account -- or as many such as you theories and/or senior tenured dwarven gloragraphers).

19 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

Yeah the sky dome isn't really a literal physical dome, some people a few years ago just did some math as if it was a real dome and iirc the result was that it'd have been unusually short.

It's of course a literary, metaphysical dome. 🙂  If you assume any finite diameter of dome, IMO you'll get fairly silly and unsatisfactory results -- the smaller, the sillier.  If it's large enough to not be measurable by Gloranthan technology, then good enough for government jazz.  (If you're measuring it with Gloranthan magic, please check the warranty on that on a case-by-case basis.  Then check yourself into a Solar Retirement Tower to purge yourself of such apostasy and heresy.)

But for me that it doesn't even make conceptual sense that it would be measurable in such ways.  It's literally part of the Hero Plane.  Just one you happen to be able to see without recourse to magic!  (Thoughtfully, it brought its own.)

19 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

And MOB has actually given us a reason for the horizon, being that light bends back up towards the sky, and gloranthan eyes apparently project light rather than take it in to see stuff.

This was of course received wisdom for centuries for how terrestrial eyes work, "extramission theory", all the way from Plato (Aristotle gets some slack for his occasional scientific howlers, but he at least actually did some science, as opposed to just having wildly wrong theories about everything 😄) until the Islamic Golden Age.  And if you want to depress yourself, find out as I just did how many people still believe it to be the case...

3 minutes ago, ffilz said:

I’m confused…

As best as I can recall, you often have long lists of things in Glorantha you ignore.  Just not in the "bits of Glorantha you ignore" thread!

On 10/22/2021 at 4:21 PM, Richard S. said:

The world is flat but still has a horizon, the sky dome's dimensions shouldn't be possible (at least from the latest math I've looked at, might have been outdated), and in general everything runs on hopes, dreams, and copious amounts of drugs. The dawn probably looks like a dawn.

The sky dome's dimensions are 'infinite', as far as trying to squint at it for parallax effects or such like are concerned, IMO.  And the sky-above-the-sky -- the golden dome of Aether and Dayzatar you see above you in the Sky World -- is infinitely far above that.  Your maths may vary!  For me it'd be just too Truman Show if you could actually see the sky distorting to one side or other as you moved north and south, never mind bumping your head into it at either Gate.

The horizon might simply due to the ol' lozenge being subtly beveled at the top.  It's much smaller than Earth, so you could have it as curved, and still be fairly flat (imagine a decent-sized part of the crust and mantle of the Americas being blasted off into space, in the manner of Agents of SHIELD), or a gentler curve and hence a more distant horizon, without it looking too weirdly Ringworldesque.  (I think I nicked the gist of this off of someone else's blog, clear credit go here as and when available.)

On 10/22/2021 at 4:21 PM, Richard S. said:

Also iirc Yelm's daughter paints the sky to look like the dawn when he rises, it's not an effect of the light and atmosphere or what have you.

The reason the Sky Dome is blue (when it's not black) is due to invading deities, after all, so some divine set decoration seems entirely on-brand.

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

Sunrise where, however? Columbia/Hawaii, southern Mexico, or north of Nome?

"Just like home" will mean different things.

Your Theya Will Vary.

On 10/22/2021 at 9:20 PM, Akhôrahil said:

This made me wonder about something else entirely - what's the speed of light in Glorantha?

I'm sure I recall a mythoid -- don't recall whose or even what era, I'm afraid -- in Glorantha you heard the thunder first, then saw the lightning.  Sound was faster than light because of elemental dominance, or something along those lines.  Iunno if that works for anyone as High Fantasy Eerieness -- I fear for me it's tipping over into cheesiness.

On 10/22/2021 at 9:20 PM, Akhôrahil said:

Does dawn rush over the lands from east to west in a way that could be seen from above, the terminator moving at a less than instantaneous speed?

I think that's more plausible (for me).  After all if you're high up enough to actually see this effect, you're en route to the Upper World, or at least the Middle Air.  Accordingly you're seeing things with myth-tinged glasses.

If you need more a SimPhysics rationale for that, I imagine that light travels near-instantaneously, but Theya and Yelm need a couple of cups of ambrosia (hazia?) in the morning until they get their range-mods all the way up.  (OK, that was even cheesier, but in the service of a Compatibilist reading...)

(double post, apologies)

22 hours ago, Darius West said:

The Yelmish pantheon doesn't seem to deal in love stories

I'm reminded of the GRoY mythlet about the Emperor decreeing that the punishment for bigamy was to have to have two wives.  And people wonder why the Fire rune is associated with chastity!  (Maybe less so that it's associated with truly obnoxiously patriarchal eaglepoo.)

On 10/15/2021 at 7:31 PM, Runeblogger said:

I love this topic. 🙂 Here's 5 ways of doing that, from different D100 systems:

Great summary!  Thanks, I'll have to look closely at a couple of those.  Tempers my urge to sulkily complain that this is in the RQ forum, whereas clearly (OK, allegedly) QW solves all these issues!  Solution, do it the same say that QW does...

I'm reminded that this isn't without much earlier precedent in the Chaosium/BRP world:  the Romance rules in Pendragon, for example, which aren't a million away from these concepts.

I do have a lingering anxiety that these "social hit points" approaches may juxtapose awkwardly with the much finer-grained, multi-layered statted and skill-dense combat system.  But I'm sure that's something that's finessable.

On 10/18/2021 at 7:30 PM, ffilz said:

I love it all.

That's quite the plot twist.

On 10/20/2021 at 9:46 PM, French Desperate WindChild said:

there are two things :

- what is the "canon" background

- what do a GM+players need to change to have a MGF background. And this part is very important.

I think this is an interesting and useful way of framing it.  If there were non-regimental initiates of YT, that'd imply either...

• As Simon suggests, they might be "attached" to regimental temples, but not serving members;
• Or they might be members of some non-regimental temple, essentially implying a locally subtly different form of the cult.

I'm sure either is perfectly possible without Advanced Godlearnerism or other such tinkering with the cosmology, but are they socially/cultically likely?  If there were such a temple, where might it be, and what would in look like?  Fairly clearly there's none in canon or canon-adjacent Old Sartar.  There's the Temple to Yanafal of the Seven Mothers in Aldachur, but that's likely to be more magical similar (if not identical) to the standard 7M cult.  Might there be a non-reg YT temple in the Provinces?  I suspect they're going to the 7M-flavoured too.  In the Heartlands -- say Yuthuppa, or somewhere in Carmania?  And if so, what sort of people are said cultists?  I don't see the Lunars as being wild about random YT cultists roaming the land staging their own version of the famous Humakti Ambush.

21 hours ago, D said:

I've tried getting it to run but it doesn't like my PC. thank you for pointing it out to me 

You probably need to install the JRE for Windows, or other such dire acts of technecromancy.  Actual in-browser support might be swimming against a tide I'd not dare speculate as to the strength or hue of.

On 10/21/2021 at 2:26 PM, DucksMustDie said:

I have to admit, I'm confused. Who guards a tribal king's stead in Sartar when he leaves for war or a quest, Elmal, Yelmalio, Ricki Lake, no-one? 😮

Yelmalio won't guard the stead, but he'll patrol the general area, subject to appropriate payment of his Day Rate!

On 10/11/2021 at 4:06 PM, simonh said:

The only one I can think of in the core rules in the Yu Kargzant cult is restricted to males.

Waha.  Very similar case.  (He says, as both of the above glare and add me to their Enemies List.)

On 10/11/2021 at 4:06 PM, simonh said:

Beyond that, maybe Karrg's Sons for trolls.

Not in the RQGCB, of course.  Did any of the 183 variations of the KL writeups have runelord-maleness as a formal requirement?  Clearly they're overwhelmingly male, but I think not because "it's difficult for female Uz to attain that status" as "it's difficult for that subcult to get them to slum it".

On 10/20/2021 at 11:36 AM, HeartQuintessence said:

I thought I'd bring up this gem that the great creator of Six Seasons in Sartar brought up most recently : as is it pertinent to our discussion: https://andrewloganmontgomery.blogspot.com/2021/10/sex-gender-and-orlanthi-running-riddle.html

Thanks for the link, I enjoyed, and very largely nodded along with.  (And likewise when rereading Greg Sezzing.)

On 10/20/2021 at 11:36 AM, HeartQuintessence said:

It was done partly because I got be a very very 'sassy' ernalda

There's another sort? 🙂

On 10/20/2021 at 11:36 AM, HeartQuintessence said:

I also tried to step out of line a bit  while "She sleeps she is not dead" is central to being like ernalda, a girl shouldn't have to be passive ( and no gloranthan woman is just waiting for stuff to happen to them- that's boring).

It's a pretty key part of the mythology.  Suppose someone complained that being Alone in Hell, utterly dependent on being rescued by their community from offstage, deprived the characters of agency and rendered them passive.  LBQ is boring, let's skip that bit!

OTOH, if you're going to roleplay a heroquest (and these would both quality), it's essential to have meaningful choices, not just Hobson's Choice stages, and preferably not just a series of lost-in-the-god-time screens until you make the "correct" choice, either.

Off the top of my head, maybe this works (as I suggested elsewhere with my idea of HQs as being like walking around the coastline one weekend at a time) by deferring this part of the myth?  Then a normcore Ernaldan encounters it again in her cultic initiatory rites.  Or if she goes 1/7 rogue and ends up having an Elmali or a Risgali initiatory experience, she permanently takes another path.  (Must.  Stay.  Awake.  Pass.  Matchsticks.)  Or more commonly an Orlanthoid one.

On 10/20/2021 at 11:36 AM, HeartQuintessence said:

The girl-rituals in my clan always start with the words "Who Calls to you?"- always even boys start with those words, and unlike the very gendered rituals [...]

On 10/20/2021 at 11:36 AM, HeartQuintessence said:

Greg made it clear that woman hood has few options, that undergoing female initation is being initiated into the Ernaldan religion and lasts for weeks it seems like.

Thing is, what you're covering here lasts for years.  In the usual telling, it starts with -- initiation is, after all, by definition starting something -- the weeks of the 'gendered rituals', then it rumbles on and takes as long as it takes, with womanhood having exactly the same options are manhood, in that respect.  (In both cases often taking the form of your relatives 'repeating their advice' on the lines of "are you still just a lay member?  when are you ever going to take some proper responsibility and join a cult", seamlessly transitioning into "are you still at the Vinga/Orlanth Adventurous nonsense?  when are you going to settle down are become a proper steadwife/holder?")  So in the first instance, I think you're in a way quibbling about which part happens when.

15 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

As long as concepts of masculinity and femininity exist, there are going to be archetypical/stereotypical qualities associated with them, but I think we should steer clear of prescribing some kind of essentialism.

I know Greg surrendered some fairly big hostages to fortune on this.  I had a moan about "active" and "passive" earlier, but rereading the Book of Heortling Mythology there's a "Greg sez" that puts the 'duality' in almost exactly those terms.  D'oh!  And I recall him once standing in the Burg Stahleck porch declaiming that "this stuff is hardwired".  (Albeit unclear what stuff was in the scope of this statement, or precisely what he meant by "hardwired".)

But for me, Glorantha itself is the counterexample to this.  Or whole series of arguments.  Now, quite possibly none of the gender models presented are to a given person's liking.  To which I'd say first, we're gaming or telling stories there, not adopting a new declaration of human rights.  And second of course, VYG.  But the sheer range of models in evidence -- even just in humans, never mind whether these dualities are not merely genetic but cosmic -- surely argues against any particular 'pink jobs and blue jobs' narrow essentialism.

On 10/17/2021 at 2:53 PM, PhilHibbs said:

RQ2 didn't have Sessions Zero!

Mumble grumble back in my day...

Session Zero was when the rules arguments in your old game you went a li'l bit Khmer Rouge.  "If we're not gonna play it right, I'm gonna ragequit and run it myself!"

On 10/20/2021 at 6:48 AM, g33k said:

Worth noting, though, is that while actual *warfare* among Praxians is pretty common, the cattle-raiding in Sartar should always avoid bloodshed.

Coulda, shoulda, woulda.  YGWV, but if I might quote from a certain "post-canonical" source:

Quote

Feuding clans raid each other often.  Such raids often turn into deadly skirmishes, although even the most sedate raid can erupt into a pitched battle.

On 10/20/2021 at 6:48 AM, g33k said:

Better to come home without the cattle, than come home stained with dishonorable blood...

Why would the "blood" option necessarily be the dishonorable one?  Assumes facts not in evidence.  See especially the "feuding clans" part.  And how such feuds can start in the first place.

You're already on someone else's territory, attempting to <yoink!> their property.  Either you have some theory of the case as to why this is an Honourable thing to do (they owe us tribute/wergeld/recompense for some other wrong, and won't pay up, the dogs!), and hence Violence is Always an Option if it comes to that, or that ship sailed as soon as you started.

1 hour ago, SaxBasilisk said:

My feeling is that it should extend to other human-like supernatural creatures, such as giants and ghosts. I don't think I'd use it for unicorns and dragons and the like.

In my personal experience it doesn't necessarily extend to ever getting a roll to see if you realize another PC in a long-running game is themselves Fae, so I'd say your mileage may very much vary on that. 🙂

Sheepcats.

54 minutes ago, YetAnotherArkat said:

If a caster successfully casts Turn Undead in a battle situation, do they get a POW check even if the caster wins a POW vs MP contest (instead of a POW vs POW contest)?

For me definitely so, with the usual proviso that the chance of success isn't 95%.  Might be something that it's worth getting an official clarification on though, with a view to this being explicitly covered in future editions.  

11 minutes ago, Beoferret said:

With that in mind, does the collective hive mind of RQ veterans have suggestions for new GM's? Specifically I mean in regards to the following: a) places to set a campaign or short series of adventures (keeping in mind different playstyles and gaming preferences);

I think these are each critical points.  The starting location is going to in large part drive the other choices -- or at least, preclude a number of options without significant additional work on the part of the GM.  And the playstyle thing could be a sharp delineator for a number of groups.  "New" and "veteran" aren't a sharp binary here:  there could be a significant number of "returners", whether past dabblers, or long-lapsed gnognards themselves.  And they too may benefit from gentle (ideally!) nudges in the right directions.  Whether it be by way of "bring back the good ol' days of <previous publication era>!" or "Wakboth no, anything but the stultifying nonsense of <edition>!"  Especially if they're in the mindset of, it was a cute little game when it was a couple of books, but now I'm overwhelmed.  And even the technically.new.com players might have absorbed some of these by osmosis, or be strongly predisposed to one of the legacy modes of play.

Most obviously people might tend to split into:

• The "Prax and Pavis" crowd;
• The Sartarite (or by extension, any of the other three 'on-map' Theyalan homelands) clan game;
• Embryonic lozenge-hopping game.  (Not necessarily exclusive with the others.)

A sketch route-map for each of those could be a public service, and any another premises for play that spring to mind...

7 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Not sure of a price, is it free @Andrew Bean?

PAX Aus explicitly says it's free.  Warhorn is too, but does have a tip-jar for donations:  https://warhorn.net/donations?ep=footer