Jim

Indeed! I guess the mitigation is: + Help from a Dessert Tracker + Protection money + Enough guards from one of the big 5 tribes, perhaps even changing through the journey + Gifting + Trading with the locals for goods they cannot get in the wastes Having such a large caravan means smaller groups of tribal raiders might avoid you, or there are irritating small raids at night that the GM can abstract in some way to avoid tedium. There could be a few big encounters that might be standoffs or outright battles, I suspect these are the scenes that would involve the PCs.

On one of the Facebook groups related to Runequest someone asked for a calendar. I'm sure this wheel has been re-invented many times, but I commented I could put one here, hence the post. The attached Excel workbook uses the rune font (http://www.glorantha.com/docs/glorantha-core-rune-font/), there is also a sheet where I started adding some holy days. Hope that helps someone. Calendar.xlsx

No doubt with the The Frog Chorus method of worship as practised by their Gorrakiki worshipping friends, The Beetles. Sorry could not resist. Thanks again, Jim

I didn't see the name Frog Island in the Atlas and Guide. Then I looked hard again at the diagram you kindly put together and it looked like you added this on (possible from the Companion?). There is a Frog Island in London, I can see a messy industrial, polluting Zistor reclamation yard. Junk shipped over from places like the Clanking Ruins and other sites in God Forgot for reclamation, perhaps building some machines. Conflict with the local newtlings, possibly Triolini and the plot of the latest Spiderman film have just merged in my mind. Controlled by a Red Earth alliance minor house that has gone too far to the dark side. And I'm off...

I had thought that the Ludoch could protect ships from the unfriendly denizens of the deep and also offer to repel/distract pirates through sea fog (although humans could also get this magic), command of large sea beasts, skirmishing, etc. I assume the pirates have ways to deal with this to an extent, but I also think the Triolini are master of their own domain in the end. One other thought along the "racket" lines was protection from the non-existent hull boring worm that any ship might be "unlucky" enough to encounter, but then I thought that in our pseudo real word the Houses and sea captains would have got wise to that. So I assumed a more trade based arrangement would be realistic given the Triolini being part pf the Belintar's kingdom.

Thanks all for the thoughts and ideas. Cheers, Jim

I’m looking at sea travel between Nochet and Karse. This seems longer than the 75 miles/day coastal travel mentioned in GTG, so I assume that there would be stop off points on the regularly used route between the two cities. I was thinking of one on the North Esrola coast (below Ax Hall before The Tangle) and on the island shown as part of the Bottomland Marsh (population 7k newtlings). The former would be in the land of one of the Houses, the latter perhaps a newtling or Triolini owned port with an interest from one of the Great Houses of Nochet. Lylket is a ruin, but I could imagine troll boatmen using it for nighttime piracy. In my campaign timeline it is 1618, so the Holy Country fleet has been smashed by the Wolf Priates. This would make the crossing riskier and I’d imagine a premium fee would be changed by any safe harbour between the two cities. Pirates have set up on the County of the Isles, so I see ships making a dash for it from Karse to get as near to Nochet as possible before stopping in a port or dropping anchor off the coast of North Esrolia cost. There could even be a Ludoch protection racket off the cost of North Esrolia where payment is made when ships drop anchor and are protected over night. Has anyone given this any thought and developed this?

I think it is a case of each race being secure in their own strongholds where they can defend with all the resources they have at their disposal in a geography suited to them. The elves are not alone in their forests. Raiding parties have to be well prepared to venture into one another’s territories, especially Aldryami venturing underground. For instance Trolls might ready specialist magic such as Tree Chopping or fire elementals, elves would need light magic for demoralising trollkin as well as to be able to see.

Looking forward to it, I'll be signing up.

For those already using rune skills to cast rune magic how are you dealing with any skill increase? I assume this is based on casting spells or using the rune skill in another way. Do you treat it as a knowledge skill or a category on its own and do you subtract the skill from 100 and that is the chance to increase? E.g. fire rune 70% means a character has a 30% chance to increase. Maybe there is no experience gain, but any potential increase is linked to attendance at a cult holy day giving a chance to increase.

Is each spell linked to only one rune? So an initiate would need skill in at least four runes to cast rune magic; magic, spirit, truth and other rune(s) for cult specific spells? If a spell is linked to multiple runes which rune skill would be used to cast it? Players choice? I think I prefer it simpler if that initiates, priests and lords use their own runes. This would mean that someone with a fire rune, because they are a Lobril worshipper, might use other fire magic in the course of a scenario (perhaps a fire related magic item), but trying to use e.g. darkness magic, would be impossible. Apologies if I have misunderstood your meaning.

So the approach I have decided to use for now is that rune spells are cast using only the worshippers god's runes. They pick the most appropriate, using a default. Thus a Humakti would use her death rune skill as the default (even for a heal limb!), but her truth rune skill for detect truth. In a similar way Orlanth's worshippers would use the storm rune for most, but movement for teleport.

I put together the attached for rune magic based on the new RQ character sheet sketch. This is intended to change how rune magic is handled for RQ2 while waiting for the new RQ. Players can write down the list of cult spells they use and a runic association of that spell, along with their skills in the specific runes. What I may have missed in this thread is if all cult spells are all associated with one rune, or at least one of the cult runes. I suspect this may be the case but not sure. For instance if heal limb is common divine magic would a Humakti use her death rune skill to cast, truth rune skill or would they have to have some skill in fertility? That might explain why Humakt worshippers do not cast divine healing magic (or at least badly), or it may be a rules mechanic that Humakti always cast cult magic with their death rune skill. Trying to get up to speed quickly before running a game on Saturday for the first time in quite a few years! Hence apologies if I missed an earlier clarification. I'd rather use the newer approach if I can, never liked initiates have one-use rune spells for the reasons stated in the pod cast. rune_magic_sheet.pdf