Alex

7 minutes ago, dumuzid said:

I've theorized elsewhere of a bat-troll-Artmal worshiped by the Blue Moon Plateau trolls

It's a dirty bat-troll job, but somebatty's got to bat-troll-do it!

There's the names Quatanara and Mahaquata (t)rolling around, or "Lesilla, or a daughter of hers", but I wouldn't take that cheque to the canon bank in any real confidence of being able to cash it.

Another possible case of "same god(dess), different mask, different name", as per usual.

1 hour ago, dumuzid said:

The Dara Happans know that Shargash and the Blue Moon are siblings.  It is a little surprising that Dara Happans know about Artmal, but maybe there's stories about him visiting Mernita that haven't come to light yet.

Bit of a head-scratcher, all right.  If this were Stafford Library territory, we'd doubtless have just learned of Madeupfunkypeloriansoundingname, little-known and little independently worshipped stabby Blue Moon deity and Annilla-relative, who is essentially for most purposes a Shargash subcult.  These days we're more likely to cut to the masks-of-the-same-deity chase, and call it an associated cult of a normally geographically very different god.

9 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Just a thought... I notice the topic is somewhat generic Eurmal. What about the specific sub-cults.

Orlanthi may tolerate Lightbringers, but I doubt many would allow a murderer or thief to live amongst them.

Bear in mind those are pretty central Orlanthi Trickster myths!  Eurmal's kinda the source of the whole 'death' trouble.  Steals(!) Death, kills Grandfather Mortal, plays lending, swapping, and stealing it back a few more times, etc, while others do likewise.  And he spends most of the LBQ stealing things (mostly) to order.

Naturally if you have a bonded Trickster, you can tell them to definitely not ever learn particular runemagic.  And you can trust their word that they'll do as you've told them -- right?

32 minutes ago, Raebon said:

Much obliged! I think I'm going to err on the side of cult priority. The origins of my group's characters are ill-defined, so cult loyalty works better methinks. Probably I'll tie it down locally, to an extent. Loyalty order might be: temple-cult-city, or something like that.

You're welcome!  I think some sort of 'session zero' exercise is very useful for establishing this sort of thing.  Could be something like a relationship map, a 'community questionnaire' type thing, or just a running-stuff-up-the-flagpole exercise.  "So peeps, I'm thinking of structuring things around Fubar the Windy, High Storm Voice of Somelocation, being the main patron for your PCs -- that work for youse?"

32 minutes ago, Raebon said:

One rule question I'm trying to nail down: do you need to learn by experience in between training of non-combat skills? The rulebook didn't seem totally clear on this point to me,and I could see the logic going either way tbh.

As far as I'm aware, there's no restriction of this sort-- unless I've missed such a thing entirely.  My meta-logic would also be that it'd be a bad idea if there were, as it'd be a whole extra and fairly unnecessary bookkeeping exercise to track skills-I-need-to-improve-with-a-tick vs ones-I'm-able-to-train.

On 5/20/2019 at 11:22 PM, Rojo said:

At the moment, and knowing that Vingan is a gender, I´m having a few problems:

 

I'm not sure if this is more likely to help or hinder, but I'd take the flat statement that 'vingan is a gender' with a pinch of salt.  IIRC El Jeff as said he's not sure Theyalan is even a gendered language.  Which could in any case mean a few different things:  is there a vingan pronoun?  A vingan agreement of adjectives, articles and verbs?

I suspect that's what's meant here is that vingan is a normative social/gender role.  In practice meaning, with as many of the male (and contrawise female) social role norms as locally expected or successfully personally insisted on.  Which isn't to say very much, of course, which gets us right back to the weeds of it!

On 5/20/2019 at 11:22 PM, Rojo said:

- My final question: any idea if Vinga would be included in the new Gods of Glorantha, or Vingans in general in another book? It would be really useful to have a better (and canon) idea about them.

I doubt we'll get much on that in CoG, beyond "Vinga:  see Orlanth."  Magically the two are either identical, or "within the normal range of variation, see local cult for details".  Cultically they pretty much always -- not just Orlanthi-always, closer to always-always! -- caucus with the vanilla, testicular Orlanth-worshippers.  There's some references to Red Hair Lodges and so forth, implying intermittent occurrences of all-female -- OK, all-vingan! -- shrines and rites, and some sort of Otherworldly possible distinction if you're a heroquester, but that's very much going to be a minority sport.

The outstanding issues are more social ones, as we've been discussing.  Hopefully later publications will give us chewy and maximum-fun (and minimum angst and grief) detail on this.

On 5/20/2019 at 11:22 PM, Rojo said:

Thanks a lot. My players and me are new to the "true Glorantha", and we have a lot of questions (and I have two Vingans to be players).

As this turned into quite the thread-zombie, I assume we're a bit late to help with that, but I hope it worked out -- is working out? -- well!

25 minutes ago, Leingod said:

I feel reasonably confident that in most cases, the default assumption is that the child is first and foremost the child of their mother, and will be raised as part of the mother's family. If the father wants to bring the child into his own clan, or bequeath things to him,  or if other circumstances put pressure on him, then it might get more complicated, but otherwise that's likely the go-to solution. Ernalda herself has many children whose fathers are either unknown or just don't matter enough to be mentioned (or just outright don't have a father).

Yes, I agree, possession is six (out of seven!) parts of the law, and this is rarely a problem in practice.  But there are possible plot hooks if the 'default' doesn't quite align with the wishes of either parent -- or of either parent's clan, indeed, as regards to the status of the relationship, of patri-/matri-lineal/-local issues, and so on.

On 5/23/2019 at 9:39 PM, soltakss said:

Vingans are female adventurers, or Adventuresses, they worship a female version of Orlanth Adventurous.

In my game, they aren't men-as-women or women-as-men. They are women who Adventure.

 

As has been pointed out, 'adventuring' in the gameable sense isn't necessarily the same thing as the Orlanth the Warrior ritual role.  But that overlap is the most common use case, sure.

But if you're a Sartarite woman chaffing at any given gender restriction or norm, then Vinga is the go-to route to challenge it.  "Men are chiefs!"  "I'm a Vingan."  "... fair point."  "Woman are the earth!  Men are the rain and the storm!"  "I'm a devotee of Vinga Thunderous."  "OK, Boomer."

9 minutes ago, Leingod said:

Yeah, it's always seemed clear to me from my readings that, generally speaking, Heortlings don't much care what unmarried people get up to with each other, even if it results in a child. There are obvious exceptions, of course, but it's all obvious stuff, the usual suspects. People your clan hates, close relatives, bandits, Tricksters, etc. There isn't some strict, patriarchal inheritance law that makes it super important that you be the "legitimate" son of a given man to decide where all the property goes, after all.

Yeah, this has been much-discussed in the past, in threads on clan exogamy with such content as "wait, having sex with my tenth cousin -- or tenth 'cousin-in-law' of no known blood relation at all -- is incest, and I'll get the the full 'you're festering chaos and will now be put solemnly to death' treatment?!"  But there are inheritance and property laws in play, albeit not quite the stuff of eurofeudalism.  So if there's two clans, a kid and no marriage involved, you have a potential dispute as to whose inheritance and property practices apply.  (You might have a dispute even in endogamous 'irregular union', but more in the 'scolding from your relatives' range, and 'swift decision by the clan ring' at worst.)

On 5/24/2019 at 3:31 PM, Bohemond said:

So in my Glorantha, same-sex desire in Heortling culture has to get expressed through cult. Some cults, like Vinga, Nandan, and Heler can acceptably engage in same-sex activity, while other cults can't, unless their partner belongs to one of those cults.

NIMG, or more accurately, NCUIMG(*), but sounds like a very viable take to me.  Orlanthi obviously have something of a Conservative Republican streak to them -- a rural independent Fianna Fáil TD and a Kinahan  OCG ones too, but I digress -- so it's entirely possible this could be regarded as ritually 'wrong'.  "No one can make you do anything, but duuuuude, that totally weakens your, ya know, 'air rune', if ya get what I mean!"  Also, your co-religionists are your neighbours, and your neighbours are your relatives, and your relatives are judgy as All Five Hells.

(*) Never Come Up...

On 5/24/2019 at 3:31 PM, Bohemond said:

But two Orlanthi cannot acceptably have a gay relationship and two Ernaldans can't have a lesbian relationship because that doesn't work in terms of fertility.

Or else Queen Ernalda's take is much like Queen Victoria's on that...  No sperm, no foul!

On 5/24/2019 at 7:21 AM, Grievous said:

Hmm, I had thought Humakti would in fact be infertile, at least in most cases.

I think they mainly have the "are terrible company and worse dates" contraception magic.  Procreation is backsliding in your dedication to death, but equally so to a lesser degree is sex generally.

I don't think your fertility insta-drops from 100% to 0% when you Initiate.  (Or indeed from whatever it'd potentially dropped to after you became a lay member, if that's a key part of your take.)  But I'm absolutely certain that there are Humakti Geases (or Gifts!) that cover that.  Or otherwise cover it in 'sufficiently advanced Humakti' sorta ways.

Bear in mind there's generally reckoned to be a couple of Humakt-as-primary-deity clans in Sartar (and presumably far more in total elsewhere).  Unless the other cultists are really picking up the slack, or they're very big on adopting-in, I don't think they have insuperable...  problems in that area.

2 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

[Seriously, though, maybe you should edit something that might amount to damaging rumor and speculation?]

The nature of the 'problems' part is verifiable and on the public record, but I have no idea if it's at all connected to the non-pub of RQ4.  It does seem a little questionable to bring it up here, I agree, and would similarly suggest @Mugen considering redacting as inappropriately off-topic.

4 minutes ago, Eff said:

I think there's an interesting realm to explore here given how marriages and clan membership seem to work, and one where children produced via adulterous (that is, sexual activity that violates the bounds of marriage(s), not all sexual activity by people in marriages with people or entities outside those marriages) relationships are a problem for the clan as a community, but I think it would need/deserve its own space. 

Oh, that'd be a whole legal drama/soap opera!  But just to be clear, I was thinking of the rather more boring "neither party is married at all" case.

On 9/18/2021 at 4:32 PM, Baron Wulfraed said:

Other than the initial jump from no damage bonus to 1D4, the progression for the rest IS in steps of 1

Missed a trick there.  If they wanted -- or someone wants -- to go Full GURPS (let alone RM/MERP), just extrapolate backwards to 1D2, 1D2-1, 1D2-2...  or some much malarkey.

OK, I admit my "dwerulans" comment was a failed bid for cheap laugh-reacts.  (Reddit's done bad things for my spiritual Acceptance when it comes to post karma, and look at how the BB deals with equal gains of on rep.  First place and ties?  Alphabetical?  Give the poor newbie an event break?  Nooooo.  To him who has been given, let him be given more! And on one of Jeff's days off, too!  😄 😭 🤣)

So to make a more sincerely tryhard orlanthropology response...

How does it work with the most obvious slightly off-All case, human males?  I assume that Nandan initiation is a 'career path' to Ernaldan priestesshood, at least as a theoretical possibility, if the 'flipside of Vinga' comparison is to be true to any real degree at all.  OK, they're pretty clearly mostly not, but they're often mentioned in the same breath as if they were, so surely this must be at least about 15% true?  Is this largely a formalised ritual thing?  Or does it require and involve pretty high-end magic?  Doing a little gooooogling, I see that the CoG draft has a Nandan subcult with the 'Pregnancy' runemagic (for which, text not yet publicly given AFAIK).  So...  on the face of it fairly high-end magic, it seems, but not "we're gonna need a bigger heroquest" level.  Assuming this doesn't get cut for space, keeping out of the twitter trans wars, or the traditional Gloracanonian authorial change-of-mind.  Your "Carry on Up Vantar" literary-mode Glorantha will rightfully vary.

So for me, that sets an approximate bar for the magical difficulty in other cases.  The social difficulty will no doubt vary even more widely.  "Oh, so that's how your species, em, does it?  The ways of the Goddess's bounty are endlessly manifold!"  "We don't have any truck with your kind 'ere.  Sling 'yer 'ook, before I have six burly huscarls sling it for you."

18 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Orlanthi society does seem to invest quite a bit of prestige in descent (imaginary or not), but I'm not entirely sure why Vingans or Nandans or the like would influence that either.

Yus.  Sex is easy, marriage is hard;  the gods bless the sworn bond.  Or however that one goes.  But I don't think they see "out-of-wedlock" kids as "illegitimate", much less kids from slightly-less-gender-role-conforming actual (or de facto) marriages.

OTOH it must be said that this is an area with a lot of modern RW baggage (and recent-modern in my current location, at that), so I don't claim to be a studiedly detached anthropologist on this.  Or on anything else, come to that!

On 8/24/2020 at 12:13 PM, Nick Brooke said:

RuneQuest is set in the Bronze Age fantasy world of Glorantha. Our protagonists, the Orlanthi barbarians, are lusty tribes who worship at hilltop standing stones and paint themselves blue with woad so they can fight naked from their chariots against the invading Imperial legions they head-hunt for trophies.  [etc, etc]

Forum feature bugfix request!  Oddly, I can only give this one reaction, when it very clearly needs all of them at once!

<checks to see how many times it's been posted, just in case...>

16 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Well thanks for telling me, I would never have known, I am quite new to this game.

You're welcome, I'm sure!  Other than "precedent" or "feasibility study and proof of concept", I don't see why "agree as far as CAs are concerned" is informative as far as XU cultists go.

On 9/7/2021 at 7:00 PM, soltakss said:

I do have a little book that I am writing names in, though.

1 hour ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Had a series of combats in troll realms and the players hired a Xiola Umbar priestess. They were a bit surprised when told in no uncertain terms to allow enemies access to her skills as well as friends if they wished those skills to continue. I felt well within my rights to insist on this. This thread seems to agree as far as CAs are concerned.

The two aren't identical in their magic or in their attitudes.  Or maybe they are, YGWV!  And of course even when they're generally different, particular priestesses may have their own...  foibles.  But unless this was a deliberate plot-twist, I'd maybe have made this clear to the PCs in advance.  Good luck with them trying to enforce modern understandings of contract law, mind you...

5 hours ago, Darius West said:

during 1625, the Yelmalio versus Elmal fight is still being played out according to KoDP

KoS?

8 hours ago, Joerg said:

IMO time in Hell manifests as growing hunger.

Going native!

57 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Ernalda wants mythic proof that the candidate is fertile (that's one of her runes) and female.  Using "female" in the traditional sense.

Or a dwerulan that has done their share of the reproductive heavy lifting.  For example!

On 1/4/2020 at 3:29 PM, Qizilbashwoman said:

Ohhhh what would that world have looked like

I have a pipedream for an RPG 'session zero' that plays out a little like a clan questionnaire writ cosmological, and a bit like a game of G:tGW.

"Select from the following cosmic dualities..."

"Roll to hit the Cosmic Order to advance to the next Age!"

5 minutes ago, AlHazred said:

That might be too much for my players. I'd have mutiny!

Shake it off!

On 5/11/2021 at 3:08 AM, glassneedles said:

Chaosium have said previously they are planning on rebranding all HeorQuest books

Heor(t)Quest:  now there's a brandname to conjure with!  (T's are pretty much optional in my accent anyway.)

On 9/20/2021 at 4:52 PM, Raebon said:

The cult requirements are a big one. They're all over the place, and some practically preclude adventuring as more than a hobby (looking at you, Lanhkor Mhy and The Seven Mothers). Do you enforce them? I've more or less decided on merely requiring tithes from initiates and rune level characters, the idea being that proper adventurers are rare and valuable commodities to cults.

As Simon says, "cult business" can cover this if the cult is explicitly acting as a patron on an adventure-by-adventure basis, or if they have the status of community champions and get broad licence.

This is only a credibility stretch if the cults are wildly incompatible or actually hostile:  why would the Seven Mothers and Storm Bull be co-sponsoring the same random bunch of adventurers, say?  But that's the sort of thing you can just iron out (or decide how best to hand-wave!) in session zero, I think, if you have buy-in from the players to having PCs from the same community, or otherwise having a clearly understood common purpose of some kind.

On 9/20/2021 at 4:52 PM, Raebon said:

Even requirements for being a lay worshipper can be stiff: mandatory attendance at weekly worship scenarios is tricky in a campaign where I'm enforcing travel times, and random encounters, bad weather and getting lost can all slow you down.

For lay members, even fairly major back-sliding is going to have more social than magical consequences.  So if you have either permission or forgiveness from the mundane hierarchy, you're fine.

On 9/20/2021 at 4:52 PM, Raebon said:

How do you handle cult/tribal relations? While the cults seem to be entities unto themselves, loyalty to one's tribe could come into conflict with cult loyalty. And for cults that are part of tribal life (Waha, Daka Fal, etc), what happens if your tribe comes into conflict with another tribe, but all the leaders are part of the same cult?

This is situation normal.  Praxian tribes are constantly at war with each other, and most of the warriors are Waha cultists.  Likewise Sartarite cattle raids:  Orlanth-on-Orlanth crime.  Evidently not a metaphysical problem for the god for his followers to be knocking lumps out of each other.  In social terms, priests are very much primarily loyal to their tribes rather than any separate religious hierarchy, which doesn't really exist anyway.  Except for cults like Paps-Eiritha...  who're not the ones doing the drive-by stabbing, anyway.  Only if the cultists break religious norms (acting against cult virtues, breaking ritual taboos) would they get any sort of religious pushback.  Humakti killing each other in honorable combat:  mythically correct behaviour!  Humakti breaking oaths to each other, nooooo.