Alex

42 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

This is a very practical solution but it is also at odds with the essential changing nature of the divinity.

Think of it as a reverse-takeover by the Solar elements.  The Yelmies have always thought this whole "cyclic" business was far from ideal, and to the degree they're an influence on the Empire, they'd be happy to trade it in for consistency, especially one with an improvement across the piece.

42 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Some measure of accommodation must be had to keep the system functioning in the Empire proper.

Arguably some measure of accommodation is necessary just to get the concepts "Lunar" and "Empire" into the same noun phrase!

34 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Is it a change to the WBRM / Dragon Pass effects? There the Glowline offers the full 7 of the Lunar strength.

Not exactly a change, unless you have a grand unified theory for RQ skirmishers and regimental-scale mass combat...  the effect doesn't necessarily scale linearly.  Though that'd be the way to bet, absent an explanatory device otherwise...

15 hours ago, Grievous said:

Hmm. The term breeding program gets thrown around a lot in these discussions around Jar-eel and I appreciate the Dune vibes, but what do we know about the components of this breeding scheme? I mean, the obvious answer is to pack as much of Red Emperor lineages into the family tree, but that isn't much of a program as standard operating procedure?

On the face of it, a magical breeding programme would look like a series of divination rituals to determine which lineage members need to be mated with which others to best advance the Golden Path.  Those might be exceptionally high information gain, or they might be just some woo for window-dressing.  Whether the whole enterprise looks more like Dune or like Carry On Incestuous Orgies maybe a matter of taste or IWG.

1 hour ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Seems obvious to me that The Dragon orchestrated all this, for reasons unknowable to human consciousness.

Peckishness?

15 hours ago, D said:

I've filmed another section of Rainbow mounds, here is the link.

https://youtu.be/Ndq_NXUTPHw

Wow!

11 hours ago, AndreJarosch said:

Watching the video i am awaiting the jumpscare of a Trollkin or Rock Lizard appearing around the corner any second. 

Or Sandy, delivering an impromptu lecture on FPS level design. 🙂

2 hours ago, Ian_W said:

Just thinking out loud here, but one of the things that Arkati and Lunar sorcery might do is to tactically *disguise* what sort of magic they do - the ability to do a quick and dirty sorcery spell that looks like using a bound spirit or bringing forth battle magic could be very useful in a fight against people who are aware of magic use, which in Glorantha is "anyone dangerous".

For the Lunars, the RQ3 take was of course they don't just disguise one as the other, they actually combine the two.  Whether that's still true to any extent in the RQG canon-to-be I assume we'll just have to wait and see, I imagine.

Among the Arkati the same might be true and for essentially the same reason, but we know less about them, there's very few of them, and they vary hugely from instance to instance, so it's even harder to say.

19 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Rune Magic is usually big and flashy as you exhort your god to grant you specific changes in the world.

They're often (but not always) big and flashy in effect, but bear in mind they whole 'SR 1' thing.  They're exceptionally quick.  They're quicker than moving your feet, or moving your hands.  

19 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Spirit spells are generally quick, and quietly focussed, with maybe a small chant or mantra.

Not all that quick, and they pretty explicitly require some sort of physical movement, Or Reasonable Local Equivalent depending on the exact spell and whatever the 'special effects' of that particular tradition might be.  And potentially in the same speed range as sorcery if mega-boosted by MPs.  (Looking at you, Bladesharp 12 (ab)users!)

19 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Sorcery, OTOH, is usually quietly meditative, but with complex hand gestures to help with the focus.

I suspect the nature of the "semi-trance" sorcerers lapses into varies considerably, including whether it's quiet, and how demonstrative it might look.  That there's a DEX SR element implies to me there's indeedsome degree of physical manipulation involved, whether subtle or grandiose.  On the face of it, if you were going to confuse any two of the three (other than ritual magics of each time, deliberate subterfuge, or especially weird examples of each type), it'd be "slow spirit magic" with "quick sorcery".

19 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

However, I'll also say that a) most Orlanthi have never seen a sorcerer in action, b) trust that LMs are just doing their God's special magic, and, c) there's a very different word for LM sorcery, and the godless stuff... Which the LM temples are very loud in venting and ranting about!

I suspect the Orlanthi (or those that care enough to worry about and rationalise such things) see it as the same, but LM have it safely mastered and contained.  A little like Orlanth's Magic Weapons -- we beat up those other guys and took their stuff.

1992 being the publication date of King of Sartar, source of the "Lunars get kicked out, and then kicked some more!" metaplot-by-fragments, lest I have made myself more obscure than usual.

5 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

But a more practical question is: Can the non-sorcerors tell the difference between sorcery and other magic in the field in real time?  IMHO probably not.  We have not been told that the "sensory manifestations" are qualitatively different than for rune or spirit magic, and those are subject to wide variations by spell and by cult.  Maybe if you were a Rune level member of all cults you could tell by elimination of all other possibilities, IF a sorcery spell's manifestations were different. 

Needs more context, I think.  In the LM case, the distinction between a snappier sorcery spell and a slower spirit magic will be fairly opaque to anyone other than a colleague.  ("These long-winded long-beards really like to make a meal of these things, eg?!")  I don't think (non-ritual) sorcery and ritual rune magic will in practice be especially confusable, in the same sort of way as you can generally tell what's a 100m race and a marathon without waiting to the end.  But an especially wily (or long-winded again) caster might blur the distinction somewhat.

If dealing with Evil Foreign Magic(TM) -- Malkioni, Lunar, etc -- the distinction is likely fairly hard to spot, unless you've been doing as Captain Picard instructed, and studying that enemy recognition chart really closely.

56 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Your friend is right.  In RQG "Standard Campaign" (1625+) the Sartarites are no longer the plucky underdog resistance fighters.  Either accept it, or vary your Glorantha.

By that standard, they were "massively nerfed" in 1992.  Or potentially earlier, if IYG you anticipated the plucky underdogs might actually succeed in their Resistance Roll at some point.

18 minutes ago, Erol of Backford said:

So the only place to get the Refuge map I posted above is the French zine? I have the old Thieves' World Box but I like the Guillaume Fournier version.

I have no idea, and I don't think I have either (spare room is too far away, and I'm far too lazy) but personally I'd not go looking for a map of Refuge in a non-Gloranthan supplement for Carse/Karse.

This thread may also be pertinent:

On 11/28/2021 at 4:48 PM, Atgxtg said:

Except it didn't make gamable sense. The rules warned you about double a triple teams, and until fairly recently BRP players knew that to be the big no-no.Yes, occasionally circumstances might result in the group being outnumbered, but then they were supposed to fight in ways that could minimize that.

While it varies dramatically between different versions of RQ (and arguably fairly dramatically according to interpretation in some cases), it would be wrong to say "there exist no 'balanced' three-on-one encounters" in any of them.  We're just haggling over where that happens in each.  Pick a opponent, pick a version, work out how tuff you have to be kill fight three of them at once, then replay this in as much detail as you seem to wish to dig into, but without first controlling for version differences.

On 11/28/2021 at 4:48 PM, Atgxtg said:

I'll throw something else into the mix too. It's pretty stupid for a character to rely soley on one skill. Especially a 2H weapon skill. It is just a matter of time before the character drops the weapon, or take a hit to an arm that prevents them from using a 2H weapon, or they get shot at by missile weapons, or some such. No adventure lives in a vacuum and can rely entiely upon a single combat skill.

But there's a big difference between "not solely, I need situational backup" and "I need to focus pretty much equally on these two skills as I'll be using them both incessantly and indeed at the same time".

On 11/28/2021 at 4:48 PM, Atgxtg said:

I don't think it fuging, just phsyics. Thier 2H can only be in one place at a time, so if it's busy parrying an attack, or in RQG three attacks, then it's not ready to attack at that moment/strike rank. But it could be later.

We can pretty confidently rule out physics as a necessitating criterion here.  Even if you insist -- over the explicit protestations otherwise of the designers of multiple editions -- that SRs are timings, what they most definitely can't be is 0ns instants.  So this isn't a "two places at once" thing, it's a "can I move between two undefined places in an entirely undefined period of time, or indeed tactically co-locate the two things so I don't need to" one.

On 11/28/2021 at 4:48 PM, Atgxtg said:

I don't think it needs fixing, at least not in RQ2 or RQ3. I'm not familar enough with RQG to say. In Earlier RQ the three on one situation is telling, and the lone warrior is sort of expected to drop unless they got more going on. 

Sounds like it is a lot easier in RQG. But then RQG is a very different animal - even the crtical chances are different.

They are?  I missed that memo...  If you're referring to rounding rules here, well, you know what they say about rounding errors...

On 11/28/2021 at 4:48 PM, Atgxtg said:

Don't let RQG muddy the waters here.

You say "muddy the waters", I say "the case I'm by far the most concerned with, give or take some historical curiosity".  YRQWV.

On 11/28/2021 at 4:48 PM, Atgxtg said:

Two things that happened on the same SR and same DEX did happen at the same exact time.

That's firstly, an interpretation on your part, and secondly, an inconsistent one, as the "can't parry on your attack SR" rules doesn't take DEX into account.

On 11/28/2021 at 4:48 PM, Atgxtg said:

Not for the "same SR" thing, heck I don't think we ever used that rule, [...]

But that's the exact point at issue.  The "three opponents" case was entirely subsidiary to that point, not a prompt for an entire change of topic.

19 hours ago, Mugen said:

The only Battle skill I'm aware of in BRP-related games is the Pendragon one, which does not covers this.
It seems to me what you describe is handled in BRP with attack skills, and in Mythras with Combat Style skills.

Also a little-known product called RuneQuest: Glorantha, but I agree on your observation about its (and their) scope.

1 hour ago, Erol of Backford said:

Is the map actually in the zine? Does anyone know? Its like $5 for the PDF...

That doesn't appear to be a zine, but one of the Midkemia Press editions of the Carse supplement.

4 hours ago, Dragon said:

Perhaps that does not count, because at the specific time the shaman is discorporate and thus not 'an embodied target'. Would that get the CA in serious trouble with the cult?

Interesting question!  Or pair of questions, really, as there's two aspects do it:  does the CA's magic fail spontaneously, due to violation of their oath in a way that's magically real and effective in and of the action itself?  i.e., the goddess herself 'notices' and cares about?  And the cultic one, which is what other worshippers would make of this case?

@simonhis IMO exactly right that the correct approach to fixing it -- to whatever extent it needs fixed -- is the amends and reparation.  Especially seen through the Orlanthi social context, where they were moving fast and breaking things, long before that guy in the Valley adopted that as a slogan, but with an emphasis that fixing them afterwards is the thing to do.

1 hour ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Where did this end up? Can not find it in Q&A which which seems a bit empty nor could I locate it in WoD.

That'd be here, I believe:  

16 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Maybe. As it's a fictional [--]

Wait, what?  Why was I not informed?! 😄

16 minutes ago, Scotty said:

[--] magic system, It could work in any number of fictional ways.

Yes, very true.   It's an issue in any system, obviously, as however crunchy you make a system, or detailed a description, you eventually hit the edge at the end of the road, and you get judgement calls.  Subsequent arguments optional.

This is maybe murkier and fuzzier than most, since it's kinda related to these "who started it" arguments that start in playgroups, and jurists, politicians and philosophers argue about regularly.  Who's "initiated the use of force" in any given situation, and hence who's simply responding to it (by magical detection in this case).

16 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

We could invent a regional reference, like "Poing Wenéliain" of "Poing Seshnelain". Would an average French gamer get the reference?

Westerner Side Story.

11 minutes ago, DreadDomain said:

"Américain" is this context really means "american" so yeah, doesn't quite make sense in Glorantha. how about a more generic "jointures de métal"? 

Jointures de airain? 🙂

Mind you, D&D weapons lists long included "Lucerne Hammers" for worlds with no such canton...

On 11/26/2021 at 3:40 PM, Grivenger said:

I was wondering if there's a system in the BRP family that already attempts to sort of meld the two styles together? I guess I'm looking for a simulationist type game without simulationist combat.

Not entirely sure what you're looking for here, but several BRP games are definitely less crunchy/simmy than RQ.  Almost all of them, in fact!  CoC itself for example, or potentially Pendragon (if we ignore it being the non-D100 black sheep -- just multiply through by five!) might be worth a look at for inspiration.  I'm not familiar with either incarnation of Classic Fantasy, though on the face of it it does sound like more of a one-stop shop.

But if you're comfortable with kitbashing, a toolkit approach combining the best of each of the things you like seems very doable.

On 12/9/2021 at 11:54 PM, Scotty said:

Yes, if it intends to attack the adventurers (living creature)

On 12/9/2021 at 11:54 PM, Scotty said:

It would detect either. The spell doesn't read their mind.

Isn't determining an entity's intent exactly a case of reading their mind?  Or whatever decision-making faculty they're using for that (instinct, clockwork).

1 minute ago, jajagappa said:

Could be, or perhaps Elusu itself is a name, title, nickname, or other reference, and no need to fold the three into one figure.

Any similarity to the phrase "The Elusive King" wildly coincidental, no doubt...

13 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Sad truth: most ”mad scientists” are actually mad engineers.

The refusal to build more than one of everything is somewhat sciencey.  If one is a sufficiently posh Theoretician, one has Experimental minions to make the test-equipment for one.  If not, one may be making one's own "research-grade" prototypes, testbeds, software, etc...

7 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

"Pick" is a tricky one because most languages seem to use the same word for a pick as for a pickaxe. I went with small and large suffixes for German.

English included -- pick and pickaxe are both used, if not quite interchangeably, then without a completely systematic and consistent distinction between the "weapon" and the "digging tool" senses.

7 hours ago, Jape_Vicho said:

In historical matters we can simply say "Falcata dacia" to distinguish it from the regular falcata which for us is obviously the iberian one and be done with it, but you can't mention the dacians in RQ.

Oops, that's a good point.  Scrub my suggestion for the Italian too, on the same basis!

9 hours ago, Oracle said:

In fact, according to the description, it is a light crossbow, which does use stones instead of bolts. So there are some similarities the "Balester", but I'm not sure, if it is really the same.

Sounds like the same thing, then.  If we trust Wikipedia -- which we don't, but it's not much different from the many-amateur-hands-and-eyes effort we're running here -- then "A bullet-shooting crossbow, pelletbow, "ballester", sometimes referred to as “stone bow” and even rock-throwing crossbow, is a modified version of the classic crossbow." and "Unter einem Balester (auch Kugelballäster, Schnepper, Vogelschnepper, Kugelschnäpper, Kugelarmbrust) versteht man eine mittelalterliche, leichte Armbrust, die vorwiegend für die Vogeljagd verwendet wurde." (Their bold, for headwords being defined.)  My original caveat was mostly in the event that the W&E was some dragonewt monstrosity made of bone, or the like.

7 hours ago, simonh said:

The Orlanthi that were up to their eyeballs in the World Council of Friends and Unity Council, formed the core of the EWF, who through the closely allied Issaries cult know the most widely used language in Glorantha.

The Orlanthi are a rich and diverse culture indeed!  Sometimes with the diversity extending widely even between "what I said before" and "what I'm saying now".