Alex

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

IIRC, Jeff gave us the numbers that will be in some future publication (Sartar set?), and I think (but don't quote me!) it was something like 60-70% initiates (out of adult population) in the Dragon Pass area. Which makes sense to me. 

Wish I could find that post again.

"Not most", "60-70%", or "nearly every adult" -- Our Glorantha Has Rarely Been So Varied!

But the Q&A disposes of that last (albeit rather generously to their own frankly poor wording -- initiated non-initiates? -- and rather unkindly to the hapless reader).  The first two are actually rather compatible, if you apply the reading I suggested earlier:  Sartar is noticeably initiatier than average.  So the "not most" is lozengeally true in general, but the "60-70%" is true specifically for "hardcore Orlanthi" types.

6 hours ago, Jape_Vicho said:

They are all on their teens or early 20s, and have all been initiated into Orlanth adventurous (yes, even the women! Shouldn't they be vingans? Idk).

Same thing, I believe.  'Vingan' is just a shorthand for 'female OA initiate', or in some cases (critical mass of such types, or a cultically important site, etc) a particular form of the cult.  Local terminology and customs may vary, but in magical terms they get 'full recip'.  Gets a little fuzzier for the Thunderous and Rex aspects, but Vinga is the route-in in those cases too, to whatever degree it actually occurs.

6 hours ago, Jape_Vicho said:

So are all sartarites initiated? Are they not? How many? In RQ:RPiG terms it's impossible to tell, as sources seem to contradict eachother.

I think "Orlanthi all" are, at any rate.  Adulthood and cultic initiation are parts of the same process, so you're a community member in good standing, you became one a couple of years after puberty for women(-path people), somewhat later for men(-path people).  If you're not, you're the social equivalent of a child, stranger, weirdo, or combination thereof.

Sartar might be just about Peak Initiate.  Lots of the rest of the world isn't theistic at all. Or is more of a mix, pushing the numbers down immediately (unless we're juking the stats by working out what initiate-equivalent is in other money).  Even their former homelands like Heortland, things are a little less old-school, due to varying amounts of Western influence.

In the Lunar Empire, and I think even more especially in its subject and precursor cultures, initiation per se isn't such a common thing, and theism is less of a mystery religion/personal emulation thing, and is more of a sacrificial/collective worship thing.  So if your local problem were 'large outbreak of undead', rather than having many villagers tool up individually with rune magic, the whole village engages in a common magical effort to solve the problem.  Though I'm not sure if any ruleset really captures that distinction, even if it still is (or ever was!) officially part of the world.  Headcanon for me, though.

Lots of initiates might be minimally committed, of course.  Or indeed 'behind in their dues', in either time or income commitment.  But some of each is in effect "deducted at source" -- if you're a bog-standard Orlanthi female/male-path person, your Ernalda/Orlanth cult responsibilities and your occupational and social ones are distinguished at best fuzzily, and often not at all.

7 hours ago, EricW said:

For example, a tribe which lives in an area afflicted by undead, surely they would have loads of Humakt initiates.

Or more of their initiates would be Humakti, at any rate.

7 hours ago, EricW said:

The interesting implication of this, the Lunar heartlands could have a real problem with finding people willing to commit to one of the cults. Some of the people who follow the Lunar Way go insane - everyone would know someone or have heard terrifying stories of someone who lost their mind after contact with the mysteries.

But most people in the Heartlands who are initiates, aren't initiates of Lunar cults as such anyway.  Or are of cults that are Lunar just in the sense that they're seen as 'healed' -- you don't need to become or even attempt to become Illuminated to join Etyries, say.  But most people in will still belong to (to whatever degree) a 'local culture' religion, rather than the Imperial overlay one -- the Solar pantheon, and so on.  Though I suspect levels of initiation are lower for other reasons.

On 1/6/2021 at 7:38 AM, John Biles said:

That being said, there are degrees of failure.  Mysticism in Kralorela only seems to have really been badly abused by the God-Learners, though maybe we just don't have enough data.

I guess that all depends on what you deem to be "abuse".  (Or where you set the "badly" threshold.)  I think at the very least there's the critique -- or what passes as critique in such circles -- of the type you see with Theravada vs Mahayana (if you look at it from the PoV of some of the "purer" Vithelan traditions, most notably).  Kralori 'mysticism' evidently takes a much more compatibilist approach to things like other forms of magic (or mashups or combos thereof), and most glaringly of all, of the whole 'being mystics and an empire at the same time' thing.

I think in practice there's almost two orthogonal axes at work.  There's whether a practice is 'pure' mysticism, 'immanent' mysticism, or not obviously mysticism at all;  and there's whether it's seen as Skillful Means of the bringing about Cosmic Draconic Realization by way of a Civilisation-in-Being strategy, as neither here nor there, or as to be strongly opposed as detrimental to that purpose.  So some practices that seem suspiciously like bog-standard animism, theism, and sorcery, are deemed to be 'Draconic';  some practices that are overtly mystical, in magical terms or otherwise, are denounced as 'Undraconic'.  Then you get muddled-up people like the PoIM who're sort of in the middle in both respects.

On 4/15/2020 at 11:57 AM, Jeff said:

and whatever ancient Macedonian was (Greek dialect? separate Hellenic language?). 

Welllll, it certainly had its own army and navy, at any rate!  Likely not air force, admittedly, unless we go for an especially Clash of the Titans take on those wars...  which given the forum we're in, obviously we very much should.

On 4/15/2020 at 2:00 PM, soltakss said:

It still is. My wife speaks Bashkort, Tatar, Uzbek and Russian and can get by in Turkish and Khazak. She was talking to a Russian interpreter from Azerbaijan and they were having a conversation in Azeri, which she doesn't speak but is similar enough to the languages she does speak that they could both do the tricky bits in their head.

For about 3s I thought "most of those are Turkic languages, how hard can that be?!" before I looked up just how many different branches of Turkic were involved.

Occasionally I imagine people applying the something like the RQ language-tree to real life...  "Kurdish, huh?  Well, that's an Indo-European language, I speak one of those, I should totally get 1/5 my skill or so!"

On 4/15/2020 at 11:36 AM, Jeff said:

Writing is in the Theyalan script. So an Esrolian can read Sartarite, etc.

If Cat Scratchings are a semi-syllabary or some such, they might leave them in the position of "I can say this stuff, George, but you can't understand it!"  Though written communication might conventionally be in a sort of Classical Theyalan, with the spoken languages more diverged in their actual realizations.

On 10/3/2020 at 7:18 AM, Darius West said:

Firstly, I like your spin on things.  Secondly, given that some ultimate dragon may appear and go all Sacred Utuma on Glorantha, I think the Theists are probably correct.

How very Augustinian of them!  "O Deity, make my one with thy Infinite Majesty...  but not just yet, we have the temple social tomorrow, and the big ceremony next week."

On 10/3/2020 at 7:18 AM, Darius West said:

As for mystics having multiple views on Chaos, I don't doubt it, but does Chaos actually care what Mystics think about it?

Very much depends what manifestation of Chaos you ask...

On 10/3/2020 at 7:18 AM, Darius West said:

Wouldn't it be nice to actually have some rules for mysticism in RQ?

I think that's probably of limited practical use.  While I dislike the idea that every sort of mysticism 'is' the same thing as Illumination, I'm not sure if the magical manifestations of mysticism are drastically incompatible with how that's cast in rules terms.  Maybe in the form of sub-illumination-like disciplines allowing the likes of martial artists, physical adepts, and such like, to use mashups of the familiars forms of magic in externally unfamiliar but internally somewhat standardised ways.

Eternal Battle is the universal quantifier!  That certainly makes sense.  ∀t ∈ time . ∀ ︎c ∈ chaos . hate (t, c)

On 9/23/2020 at 3:51 PM, Eagle Talon said:

I’m curious about the cult’s relation to the one of Yanafal. Perhaps a friendly rivalry or a heated competition in the lunar ranks? 

I have a vague memory of TotRM touching on this in some its 'Lunar regiments' material, if that's of any use to use.  (And I can see where it might not be, given the vagueness and the antique source.)  I think the gist of it was that Polestar was the Old Order cult of choice for being a staff officer type, but tending to be displaced in that role (and others) by YT in newer formations.

7 hours ago, Jeff said:

It is actually pretty easy. Just base things on the building blocks of Glorantha Sourcebook, King of Sartar, RuneQuest, the Guide, etc. It only gets tough when you try to put the HW-era material in.

I think this is a good application of the Follow Chosen Sources mythlet!  Pick the sources you like (whether generally or in the particular case) and go with the "obvious compromise" between them.

18 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I was going to mention that this seems like an editorial clean-up/retcon/Gregging to make things more ordered, [...]

Somehow making things more ordered seems like a misuse of the term 'Gregging'!

On 8/30/2020 at 12:07 PM, Darius West said:

Or is it?  This is something even the gods are on record as saying that they don't actually know.  If the gods don't actually know, and if travel to the void beyond the Sky Dome neither annihilates you nor gives you chaos features, but the primal plasma harvested from the Chaosium does, then what is really going on? 

It's above the gods' pay grade!  But travel to the void might readily do either of those things.  Or much else besides.  Whether you see it as a high cosmic mystery of a seething morass of raw entropy, going there is beyond the difficulty of any 'ordinary' heroquest, and correspondingly the results could be broader, deeper, and more drastic.  Mainly the latter if you get it wrong.

On 8/30/2020 at 12:07 PM, Darius West said:

I see the cosmic void as being very distinct from the Chaosium.    Absence is not chaos,  in fact it is closer to the Infinity Rune imo.  The void is a place of cosmic dragons and mystics who have refuted the world.  I suspect that if you have access to Air or some magical proxy thereof that you can walk on the Sky Dome.

Being above the Sky Dome 'merely' puts you into the theistic Solar otherworld.  Beyond that you'd reach the Aether, which you might see as a High God or fundamental rune sort of level of being, if like you me you have fond memories of the (admittedly ridiculous) cosmic scale of target numbers from the HW era.  The void/chaos is way beyond that too.

But many Gloranthan cultures and belief systems would see the too as the same, or at least inherently related.  For the theistic conservatives, because they see 'mystical' malarky as deeply dangerous in essentially the same way as chaos is -- it'll not just kill ya, it'll destroy you utterly on a spiritual level too.  And indeed, destroy the universe if you don't keep a close eye on.  And conversely for the mystics -- or at least prominent examples thereof -- they see the manifest forms of chaos differently from the 'kill it with lightning bolts!' squad.

The dragons are an interesting case.  Clearly even hardcore traditionalist Orlanthi see Dragon and Chaos are distinct -- but both being so fearful that the distinction is almost moot.  That gets more complex still when the Dragonfriend craic starts happening all over again, of course.  "It's a safe and renewable source of limited mystical understanding!"  "Sounds like what got us all killed last time, but we're desperate enough to give it a try."

On 8/30/2020 at 12:07 PM, Darius West said:

The  Chaosium is a much smaller place, and is likely the origin of all sources of Chaos Slime.

For me, the outer chaos is the source of creation of the world-as-is.  The Chaosium is the ultimate source of creation within the world.  Turns out a lot of creation ends up being bad -- whodathunk.

On 9/14/2020 at 12:46 PM, Akhôrahil said:

I keep thinking that the Lunar hi-speed conveyor-belt mass-production Illumination method is bound to have less depth than others, but this doesn't seem to be supported. 

I've some sympathy for this view, but I suspect it's more usefully gamified as as 'snark freely available from Kralori and East Isles sources' than as inferior magical powers manifest in the one as in the other.  (Which isn't to say I think that these are all equivalently the same 'Illumination' as such.  (Which isn't to say that I don't think Chaosium may well think they are.))

On 9/23/2020 at 9:19 PM, Mark Mohrfield said:

Well, to me the Gloranthan iteration of the rules will always be HeroQuest, dern it.

I feel much the same.  Not merely out of sentiment and stubbornness, as because that habit's going to be mighty hard to unlearn after those neurons firing in that manner for all these years now...

Perhaps much as, post-Hollow Crown and gags on Pointless I've started to think of Richard II and Henry V as Henry IV, Parts 0 and 3 respectively I can do the same with Hero Wars and QuestWorlds...

On 9/23/2020 at 12:51 PM, davewire said:

Also, I think it'd be kind of silly and cool to have two completely different games with the same name on my shelf.

I've accomplished this feat in the form of Maharaja and Maharaja.  In the same order from a since-defunct US boardgames company.  Their demise I'm sure not directly related to their mistakenly shipping it to "IR(an)" rather than "IR(e)L(and)" and them not arriving for nine months...

Can recommend the former; the second was once described with cruel accuracy as the world's first 3 1/2 player boardgame.

§5.6 Extended vs Scored Contests vs Chained Contests:

Quote

Both scored contests and chained contests can be used as an escalating contest, see §2.8.2

Should read "see §2.6.2"

6 hours ago, Wrestlepig said:

The only good theory I've seen about how to fully undo the curse, at least on a smaller scale, is for the mother troll to heroquest as Kyter Ligor in that battle and win. That's practically impossible, but if you could do it, you'd be hailed as an incredible hero and never birth trollkin yourself at the very least.

I think that's definitely possible.  At least in the post hoc sense:  do ritual, have several Dark Troll children consecutively, retire from the field victorious.  Was it an entirely successful HQ?  Just getting entirely lucky on the Big Random Table Beloved to Gamers?  Bit of both?  Not readily distinguishable in practice.

On 5/24/2019 at 5:39 PM, Joerg said:

Heler is gender-fluid and sex-fluid, but not necessarily hermaphroditic (as in both sexes at the same time).

That'd be sequential hermaphrodism, then (a la many species of fish), rather than simultaneous (divers gastropods, most notoriously).

Or gender- and sex-fluidity at John Varley tech levels, if you will.

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

- What kind of Ortlanthi marriage would they use? I don´t see Vingans subordinating themselves to men, for example. Any canon response about that?

Too lazy to look up the full list right now, but most forms aren't about either party being "subordinate", they're just tidying up the contractual details concerning the prospective kiddiwinks, and any property involved.  If the woman is a hardcore active Vingan, then the patrilineal, patrilocal form might suit them rather well.  "OK, I've done the 'hard labour', it's over to you and his 'aunties', pops!  Back at the end of the currently prevailing emergency conditions.  Bye-ee!"

If they're less active as Vingans -- taking a break from taking a break from the traditional female/Earth path, as it were -- matters might be a little different.  Taking us back to "treat as entirely normal marriage", really.

Sounds spectacular!  Was this at a con, and were the players hardened Gloranfans, newbies, or scattered across that spectrum?

On 27/01/2018 at 4:16 PM, kaydet said:

I agree with @JonLAnd who cares if Elmal is subservient to Orlanth? So are all the other gods.

There's couple of differences in that Elmal is, on the one hand as pointed out earlier, a minority clan leadership cult, and on the other, pressed into the role of a ritual enemy, when an Evil Emperor surrogate is required.  Those are likely to conspire to create a sense of grievance that, say, Humakt  worshippers wouldn't experience.

I greatly enjoyed Jeff's piece on the clear objective superiority of Yelmalio over Elmal.  I was almost waiting for the companion piece from the Elmali POV!  I'll be a little disappointed if "official Elmal" just makes him straightforwardly worse, rather than "yes, I can see the magical, mythic, and political motivation for why most of them switched -- and why some of them didn't".

Some of the more overtly "low" fire powers ascribed to Elmali might be a bit much.  But shouldn't Elmal have at least some more overtly "sun" magic than Yelmalio?  Given the latter's status as "no madam, we don't have a sun god, but we do have something similar" cult.

Over and above standard "YGWV" disclaimers, "outdated" is especially relative here.  The Lunar material has been through several iterations, each contradicting as much as it adds, and sometimes appearing to row back in the original direction.  So who knows, the new old might be the old new.  I'd advise just using what you find best, and drifting it in whatever direction appeals...

With regard to the 7M version of the cult and the full/Heartland one, my intuition would be that the Humakt-like angle is greatest in the former, for the very reason of presenting a compatible face to converts.  The worship elsewhere will resemble Humakt less, whether or not they're truly related at any deep level.  Having said which, somewhat like Humakt but moving in the direction of 'soldier' and 'officer' (and by implication, somewhat away from 'solo killing machine') isn't a terrible starting point, either, absent much in the way of definitive detail otherwise.

2 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

I found I had to take two steps to get the Ephemeris enabled on Chrome.

Apparently Chrome*OS* is more vexatious still, though.  But I should be able to run something via crouton/Ubuntu, or if all else fails, find a Steampunk relic from a bygone age that should be able to run it.