Alex

Yeah, I think "Dumbarton rules" apply -- if you want to throw a party and get the drinks in, etc, to mark your own birth, knock yourself out! Might be seen as a little hubristic, but hey, free food, how bad? I don't see surprise parties being wildly popular in a world with Eurmali and Humakti... And it's kinda a bit too much in clan-based Bronze-Age(ish) society. You could be getting feasted three times a day!

Eurmali All -- i.e. about 15%?

Hopefully Bob B. #1 didn't hold quite such appalling views as Jr (and JrJr?). Or at least he had the wit to keep any such a little more to himself, if he did.

Not a disaster, as I assume there's a "dropoff rate" at each stage. Not all foals will survive to three (for the sake of argument) years, not all of them will be suitable riding animals, not all of those will be combat-trainable to any degree, or make suitable cavalry horses, or be Black-Horse-Troop wannabe trollkin-eating heavy-cav warhorse steroird-monsters. Having said that, I wouldn't be surprised if there were variations on that particular magic. Especially where there's Dunbar's Number of candidate magical specialists within a feasible geographical area. And being more pro-male seems very on-brand for Fire Tribe creatures, and their associates!

My word but that's some super-horrific stuff. And the RPG industry has seen its share, so you'd think we'd be numbed to the shock by now... but no. Very sad.

Huh. Your preferred level of detail will vary, clearly. I felt I was speaking directly to the topic.

Incidentally, if you ever see anyone trying to actually do this, the method is invariably, "first dodge your arrow". To very loosely paraphrase Mrs Beeton. Partly as you'd look quite the idiot on your youtube channel with several large wounds from the first several "takes" you didn't plan on mentioning it, and partly as you need room to make the "cut". Actually the posers trying to do this generally seem to perform their "dodge" by the technique of getting the archer to fire at a target, and standing out of line with it. Unless you're in the Matrix, observing the flight of the arrow, doing a big sidestep to get out the way, and then making a perfect cut at it in mid-flight is a whole lot of action to pack into a short time interval.

I think it's a good deal less codified at clan level, which is less Legal Procedural Drama, and more Extended Family Soap Opera. If you want to complain about the chief turning up uninvited and acting like a boor (to take the extreme case), who do you complain to? Though to steal another Dunham line, "a wise chief would not," at least when it comes to narking off too many people... or the wrong ones.

I'm just going with the "pickier and less relentless eaters than cows" factoid. That may still be be not that picky, or that... unrelentless. If your hossy approximates a spherical equid in a vacuum, you've fumbled that Animal Rearing roll, indeed.

Right, it's not your best arable land that's needed, but from what I gather you want better pasture than you'd use for cattle -- much less for sheep -- or else a much lower "packing density" of head per acre.

Probably wends its way back to an Earth cult in all cases -- or at least "All" cases -- if not a whole series of them. But the immediate granter is likely generally your clan itself, either in the office of the chief, or of the clan earth priestess/Inner Ring member. Simplest likely case, the tribal, City or kingdom Earth template considers itself to have Ernalda the Queen's sovereignty over their portion of the land, they grant clan-sized parcels out it out, generally in line with long-established tradition and practice until there's some great ruction that requires changes to such, then the officers of the clan grant rights to it in turn to steadholders. Make that more complex to taste with additional intermediates on either end if there's Story or just Lore Fun (it's a mostly harmless vice!) in it for you. So if your chief (or the like) turns up in person, your position to keep him out is... weak. Very weak. As a steadholder your rights extend not just to your Big House but to the surrounding farmland, etc. But they're the rights to use those. It's not like you have to issue and respond to the Greeting to your cousins when they cross from their stead's pasturelands to yours -- that'd be ridonculous. OTOH, I don't think you can just wander into someone else's home and start snacking on cheese and carrots out of their food store with no by-your-leave either. "Mrrmmm, nice. What about some fresh bread to go with, huh-huh? Any danger of some stew?!" Conversely, if you kin need to be fed, and you refuse, it'd be great shame on your -- or the sign of great inter-bloodline pettiness, at the least. So it's not a Soviet Collectivised Farm, but it's not suburban picket fences either.

I dunno quite how the boundaries between "general clan property" and "property granted to a steadholder" work, both physically and in terms of particular rights. But on the face of it, if Bob forbids entrance to his dwelling to armed individuals (from his own clan or not), and they forced their way inside anyway, that seems like a gross breach of hospitality. OTOH in terms of social, economic and political leverage, no doubt this is the case in general terms.

"Ooooooooh, you wanted to be able to get out of Hell, too? Sorry, that must be some other subcult. I only know how to get in! No, I'm not sure what I do for an encore, either."

I'd assume that's highly contingent on Jeff's and Kalin's availability, which apparently -- and understandably, given the slew of RQG product in the pipeline -- is currently low.

I apologise unreservedly to the thread! 😄

Not in RQG there's not. I think the three-on-one thing is actually likely to happen; people are suckers for what was once (in rather dubious taste) called the "fuzzy-wuzzy fallacy" scenarios. Just pick what skill and other kit levels taking on three trollkin, three rubble runners, etc, etc making gameable sense. You say "ignored" the risk, but exactly what are they supposed to do to avoid it? Even after the first "test round" when it's established this is the pattern of SRs, come to that, where there seems to be especially little they can do other than to find out the hard way. "Nope, no Parry for you! I might generously allow you to change your SoI to 'Dodge', though." I think it is indeed fudging, because you have a completely muddled race condition if the 2H-wielder needs to "swap" attack order with an opponent that'd rather they attack first, and have to sacrifice their parry from doing so. In order to simulate... some sort of Great Axe parry-riposte situation? I'm really not sold on the concept. Albeit in about three minds as to how and whether to "fix". It's a lot easier in RQG, of course, as I observed with my 155% skill aside (parry at 155%, then parry at 125%, then at 95%). But I suspect we might be getting a tad deeper into the specifics than I'd intended. My point was simply that the "can't parry due to SR 'timing', despite SRs not being 'times'" thing could apply to not just one but any number of parries. Reverse-engineering to whatever several-on-one scenario you deem likely or gameable. In a one-on-one sitch you might have other asymmetries that make it more of an issue: the other has a shield parry, or can soak damage in a way that makes them getting a no-parry hit in worth it, etc. But I should stop trying to illustrate the point, as then we get bogged down in a particular offhand example for pages and pages. 🙂 I'll grant you the point about Dodge; the 2H-wielder isn't in an all-or-nothing situation, they're in their all-or-their-backup-option one. Unless they're in a real corner case, and can't do that either, for some reason. Foot Glued to the floor, or something. It just seems rather... undue if it comes down to the breakpoints of SR calculation, or some sort of ludicrous zugzwang setup where it's not in either's interests to actually attack, for no especially logical reason.

All merrily stipulated; I was just trying to make the case analysis explicit down to the level of, when you need two skills (hence need to train both, if you're sinking money into that area), and when you potentially only need one (and hence can focus on just that one). For clarity, the errata for which version?

I think the whole "generations" thing in the theogony is pretty moveable. Look at Vinga: Gen 1, Gen 2, or Gen [anything up to whatever Rastagar was, give or take]? What different does it make magically and mythically? None. The "historical" truth might be all of those, or none of those... doesn't especially matter. Right. And Humakt is in the mix, too -- apparently in Greg's earliest writings, they were essentially the same -- or inconsistently jumbled up -- and David Dunham had a take (for his East Wilds "Orlanthi" -- or Humathi, I should perhaps say!) that IIRC kinda-sorta goes in the same direction. If we were folklorists, ethnographers, anthropologists and allied trades looking at such material in the RW, we'd likely be seeing this in terms of these being relics of cultural fusion and supplantation, in the way we see in the Greek theogony, and the layers and reconciliations we see in Hinduism. Personally I think this is great and deep stuff so is Off-Topic for this post, but the forum being the forum, I'm confident someone will be around shortly to say yup, it real dumb. 🙂

Right, and so did shields, hence my confusion at this comment:- If you were using a shield at all, and suddenly decided to extemporise attacking with it, without separate experience or training, you were doing so at [Base Chance] + [Category Modifier], not at your existing Shield Parry. In fact, it wasn't even the same category modifier! So the change is:- RQ2/3/G, fighting with weapon (attacking) and shield (parrying), two skills needed; RQ2/3/G, fighting with weapon (attacking) and secondary weapon (parrying), two skills needed; RQ2/3, fighting with 2H weapon (attacking and parrying), two skills needed; RQG, fighting with 2H weapon (attacking and parrying), one skill needed; RQ[edition], fighting with 1H weapon (attacking and parrying) and 1H handkerchief/hand behind back in an ostentatious fencing-balance pose/other stylistic choice, as with 2H weapon. With the caveat I was just discussing with @Atgxtg, which is the "same SR" glitch, and of course the "oops, out of HPs in the one candle I'm burning at both ends", so make that one-and-half skills needed, weapon and dodge.

I'd bet a small amount of cash that there's a yadome no jutsu ki skill in Land of Ninja, but I'm too lazy to go try to find my copy, and it's very cold in the spare room... 🙂 Other than that, I'm not aware of any version of RQ that's allowed parrying of missile weapons, but you could always try a separate post on the RuneQuest subforum to see if any of those mavens know different... Your player's Vingan should probably be doing one or more of... Heroquesting for arrow-cutting magic of the sort described; Developing magical or tactical means to be closing on said antagonists sooner and quicker, rather than playing at their pace while they assist her in channeling her inner porcupine-hsunchen aspect in this manner; or, Train the living daylights out of her Dodge. The final option seems like the most cost-effective, but YMMV!

If you feel that's not a valid option, you need to HeroForm Orlanth harder! 😄

I take your point on trying to do this 'tactically'. I'll file that rationale away in case this ever actually comes up in play. 🙂 I don't think I'm yet thrilled about it occurring incidentally, either. Sure, but I was throwing that in to emphasise just how "swingy" a decision that is. If my three terrible-skilled-but-low-SR opponents attack either on an earlier SR, or a later one, then I get to (under the various old regime rules) split my 285% weapon skill optimally between them. (In RQG I'll be relatively fine with just 155%, given a fair wind!) If they strike in the same SR as I just killed the fourth one in, but after I did, then I don't get any chance to parry. Is this years of expert SCA and HEMA knowledge going into brilliant simulation, or is it pure game-mechanical attack? But the number of attackers is fairly incidental to the essence of the scenario I was describing. I suppose another way to fudge it a little is to give the player the option: attack on their "correct" SR, and get no parry that SR, or to attack a SR later, as with the scheduled-to-parry-first case.

Nochet! 😄 But "soon"! For some definition of soon... But that's essentially the plan, 100 cults, all longforms, plus a hugely expanded Prospedia. Almost everything in GoG, and "many, many more", as they say on the ads. There is (or was) a list of all the deities to be included, but can't find it right now, and the forum's seriously playing up on me right now.

I was thinking more of the flipped case, where you've attacked already in that SR, at which point three different guys go "ah-hah! no parry this SR!" and hit you exactly then. Could always also borrow the (RQG) multiple parries rule, and allow it at that (or some other) penalty,

Not a system difference, and RQ3 did get some "long form" cults published is a number of places. And RQG is in the process of winning that particular battle with 400+ ox-stunning pages...