Yelm's Light

OK, next Why. The Rokari Church is a barely-wallpapered version of the Catholic Church. It has its Knights Templar (Order of Saint Gerlant), its Inquisitors (Order of the Golden Lance), its hospitallers (Order of Saint Xemela), and its copyists (the Humble Calligraphers, though they are far more independent in relation to the Church than their RW counterparts were). It also has the Iron Blood 'School,' which supported crusading armies. And with the Closing, it has its variety of sects splintering from it and that are mostly termed heretical by the Church (see: Lutheranism, Protestantism, Anglicanism, etc.), which it does its utmost to stamp out or absorb. All of this a millennium or more beyond the Bronze Age setting of the world. Nevermind that, if anything, a church-based system would seem far more theist, whether poly- or mono-. More generally, the entire idea of wizardry being overwhelmingly governed by churches in the first place is almost completely alien to fantasy fiction. Wizards are mostly reduced to monastic types in Glorantha. Yep, I get that Malkionism is the religion for an entire state, and even spills over into other regions (again much like the Catholic Church), but generalizing that to an entire magic system? Bishop Gandalf, anyone? Brother Merlin? Friar Ged? How many Church Wizards have you ever heard of in fantasy fiction? If anything, wizardry should be based on the school model that is a very minor part of the HQ* rules. Earthsea's School of Magic in particular comes to mind as a solid exemplar. Thoughts? *I refer to HQ generally here, whatever version you use.

Art can certainly have other benefits than being nice to look at. Witness the detail involved in art direction for Chaosium stuff recently. (Was it MOB who was doing that? I forget without doing a bunch of searching.) It can illustrate things about the setting in ways that words can't or at least can do so more efficiently. It can also inspire storylines and/or roleplaying. Of course there's the caveat, 'when it's done right.' I'd also argue that maps are included under the definition of art, and they clearly have informational value.

Bah. Another 'give us your data and you can access our site' site.

Assuming it works as it would in reality, since the Red Moon hovers over the Lunar Empire, it should appear at least slightly smaller to an observer on the southern continent, and the viewing angle would most likely be different (unless the observer was in line with both Dragon Pass and the Red Moon, in which case he would have to be somewhere on or near the East Isles). Apparent size would depend on the relative distances of Dragon Pass and the observer's viewpoint, and also the Red Moon's height above Glorantha; the higher it is, the less the change in size. I'd also expect that the phase would be different, again depending on the observer's position on Pamaltela. Of course, someone will probably come up with a magical/mythical reason why I'm wrong...

Substitute 'and' for 'but' (and possibly shoehorn 'speak' after the first occurrence of 'PCs') and I think that's the sense they were going for.

I would think that there's at least one regularity to rogues' behavior: they'd tend to be much more survival-oriented without the promise of rebirth. Another issue is that Right Action is a slippery fish in itself. I don't recall where I read it, so it may not exactly be canon, but the point was made that outsiders don't know how Right Action works (i.e., what would be considered a counterbalance to an action taken or spell cast). That's all well and good for players, but as GM I want to pin down what's going on there. I'm not particularly satisfied by their being a deus ex machina. I can come up with any number of those that don't involve dragonewts.

It's like a virus. Now I'm seeing a whole scene in the old, raw, Tracey Ullman Show style with Homer elbow deep and shoveling it into his mouth. And don't forget the can of Duff.

Must've been some pretty good entrails. I hadn't even heard of RQ until the year after WF7 was published.

I'm going to guess that that's not a very large cult.

Most annoying thing I've ever encountered in HQ: the mastery notation for ability levels. Every time I read one I want to do so like a number or algebraic equation (i.e., x masteries + y base roll). But nooooo... To this day I have to mentally flip it. So what possessed our beloved designers to do it that way?

Holy crap...I just realized I've read those...as a matter of fact, I have two Butcher trilogies looking at me right now, in a bookcase next to my desk. Never seen the Siffy series, though. Pretty good pulp stuff, but not on par with The Black Company to my eyes. And I definitely agree that Harry isn't anywhere near all-powerful .

Wizardry schools have listings of very specific effects (at least in HQ, and I'm guessing from your description that you're using HQ2). A character isn't just a Trained Wizard, he/she is of such-and-such a school that determines the possible range of his/her abilities. I expect you'd need to define the schools yourself if you're playing in a non-Gloranthan setting.

Given that Fear of Dragons is pretty much ingrained in every mortal race HQ-wise, I doubt there's a whole lot of delight involved.

I think what you're looking for is in WD 54, in the RuneRites column: Down Among the Dead Men - Undead in RQ I found that via Runequest/White Dwarf Index, apparently a listing of all RQ-related articles there. Not surprisingly, there are many more RQ articles than in the Dragon. A number of other monsters seem to have been published, too...check out the listing.

35 and 53 (the first for Traveller, not even worth the read, and the other a new mob for AD&D in the Dragon's Bestiary).

In my searches I found an interesting little resource; it lists every author published in Dragon magazine up to at least #351 (as far as I looked, which was the first few pages). It also has a listing for the game(s) to which each article applies, which made it much more searchable. It's called the DragonDex. Unfortunately, of the eight entries I found, none applied, so unless it's a more general article that includes the conversions, it doesn't appear to appear. Curious monkey that I am, I checked for my own name to see if it was there, and, lo and behold, there I was...with another article that I'd completely forgotten that I'd ever written, let alone had published! (Reading over it, I was, shall we say, less than impressed with myself, but then I was 15 years old when it was published, and may have been 14 when I actually wrote it.)

Eh, they're lightweights...they borrowed theirs from the Greeks.

Big Kelly Reilly fan here. Something about those redheads; must be the Celt in me. Actually, a lot of it reminded me more of Skyrim than Glorantha. Go pagans! Beat Romans!

Not an answer, because I can't think of any, but I chuckled at some of the dramatis personae: 'court reporters' Joseph Democritus and William Diogenes, the judge, the Right Honorable Sir Francis Lash, the Counsel for the Crown, Mr. Cunning, and the Counsel for the Defence, Mr. Serjeant Grin.

Hence the naming of the Aldryami Hero Grandson in my little Dragon Pass variant.

They're generally solitary or pride-based, although young males will group together occasionally to get into trouble. They're plainly matriarchal, curious, and mischievous. Imagine scenes of cubs playfully fighting each other (with a serious purpose, ultimately). I had a roaming group of young males whose sole apparent purpose in life was to compete at giving unsuspecting Plains wanderers hotfeet. One of them had come upon an Ignite matrix and figured out how to use it. He taught his pack-brothers, they'd sneak up on their targets, and if they got caught at it they'd run away, laughing. (I gave them Hide in Cover and Move Quietly, which the original writeup didn't.) Also, a qualification to Iskallor's comment about hunting. 'Unattached' young males (those without a pride) must hunt in order to survive, and they also look to do something praiseworthy that might lead to reentry into the pride. The writeup mentions stealing metal weapons as a possible route back. Regardless, acceptance by a group, whether the pride, a military unit, or simply the roaming pack, is a main driver.

That's like electing Trump, only the baboon has better habits. (Btw, it's Melo Yelo.)

They're probably my favorite hsunchen. They definitely saw use in my campaign.

If they're completely without Runes, why is there a Dragonewt rune at all? Or, for their betters, the Dragon and Infinity runes?

Yeah, I noticed that little dichotomy too. Unless dragon magic doesn't rely on a Rune casting roll, I don't see how to get around it. So unless the latter holds true, paradoxically all dragonewts following the path of Right Action are mediocre casters. The big issue with being a 'rogue' dragonewt is that, depending on how extreme they get, not only do they lose the ability to gain more power by metamorphosing, some can't even be reborn at all.