Nevermet

Does Bijiif, the portion of Yelm smeared with ash that sat and waited in the underworld, have an association with the fire rune?

Pretty much what it says on the tin: what runes are associated with Estoro / Ganestoro / Ganesatarus? Even more specifically, are there any canonical statements about this? I could imagine cases to be made for darkness, death, disorder, illusion, chaos...

I have had dreams of doing exactly that, and then I remember I have no clue how to write gaming stuff. 😅😶

And.... I'm kind of embarrassed to ask this, but does anyone else find the unrelenting cycles of destruction to be depressing? I mean, to say that does not suggest it's low quality, but.... damn.

As I look at the map that got posted a while ago... it looks like Maniria somehow isn't flooded? If that's the case, I'm guessing some big Heler goings on, combined with some cities going domed liked Erenplose. And, of course, floating pigs. Also... what will the Flood do to the White Sea? Will the Sweet Sea rejoin the oceans?

The fact that they "proved" the Goddess is both Natha and Gerra is a neat trick for Pelandan religion. I mean, I'm sure that there's much more than that, but that is a kinda mindfuck. Also, given that, I'd imagine more than a few promoters of the Jernotian Way who had to be quickly removed from power as the region was lunarized. EDIT: Also, i'm not entirely sure how "proving" God 1 = God 2 works, but I'd imagine some Spolites resisted the lunarization of Gerra (though not many, given they would have seen the Lunars as liberators against the Carmanians I suspect)

Agreed 100%

I almost want to suggest the easiest way to read the Entekosaid is to only deal with the Entekosaid, accept that it is a series of myths (and a few snippets of history) from very different points in time, edited together by an unreliable narrator. I don't think I actually believe this, but I almost do

Also, why are you reading this? What do you want to get out of it?

I will not suggest a reading group I will not suggest a reading group I will not suggest a reading group... Heh, sounds like we should make a reading group! Dammit!

Yeah For cross referencing outside the Entekosaid, I found it handy to have The Guide, the Fortunate Succession, and the Glorious Reascent. Last time I read it carefully, I was more interested in figuring out Spol than Carmania, or perhaps I would have also had Revealed Mythologies handy too. But yeah, it's one of the least Godlearner-y texts there is.

Following. Have fun just trying to cross reference inside the text, nevermind the rest of the Glorantha corpus.

Session 1 Session 1 I went over character sheets, the basics of the HQ rules, and introduced the players (Kullen's player didn't know the other 2). And then we got into it. Here was the setup: A morning like any other, Lyobum frantically goes to find Kullen, one of the longest serving and more trusted members of the caravan. He also finds Dara & Arlette. He tells them all that he just found Benny, dead. A 10 minute walk away, they find Benny dead in a pond They find fake bite marks on his body. After some investigation, there is no obvious sign of death (i.e., no wounds). Lyobun tells them that Benny had a powerful magical bargain with the Elves: If Benny is killed, the Elves will avenge his death. Now that Benny is dead, the Elves are coming. If the murderer isn't discovered before the Elves arrive, Lyobun worries they'll just turn the entire caravan to mulch. The players quickly went to work: They decided (adding a LOT of glorious detail, I might add) that they were terrified of Six-Point taking control of the caravan. They built him into being a bigger power-hungry threat than I originally planned, but that's fine with me. So, they need to explicitly back Lyobun as the temporary head of the caravan. They recruited Mosscalm the hunter to help with the physical investigation. I'm not completely sure why they decided to trust her, but they do. Lyobun found the body, which makes him a suspect, but he's also the least assertive, most loyal guy on the entire caravan, so none of them think he did it. The ACTUAL murder mystery will be relatively simple to solve: Lady Featherjoy poisoned Benny in an effort to take over his spy network that he has operating throughout Maniria. Toff saw her do this in secret, and is trying to decide whether to keep his mouth shut, make a deal with her, or denounce her. Six Point is a meat head, similar to the low-intelligence cops one often finds in murder mysteries. I plan to use the benefit rules to have the PCs slowly build up enough evidence that they can link things together and accuse Featherjoy. The fun will be how many red herrings and distractions I throw at them along the way. For example, there will be an "ogre scare", and that Benny was murdered by evil chaos worshippers. So far, so ok. Wednesday will be Session 2, and it will be much longer in terms of true gameplay, as the rules and setup are taken care of. Everyone is having fun so far, which is cool.

So, Wednesday night I had my first session of my new mini-campaign. Caravan Calamity is set in Maniria. A trading caravan of wagons and horses is travelling between Jaraz and Yolanda, when one morning the head of the caravan, Road Baron Abbanes, is found dead in a pond. The PCs The PCs all work on the caravan: Kullen is a Ditali Wenelian who is the cook and healer of the caravan. He has been with teh caravan, and with Abbanes, for years. Arlette Scalecoin is a textile merchant from Jubal. She is very likeable, likes creature comforts, and this is her second season with this caravan. Dara is an entertainer with a rough past that has left her suspicious of others. Key NPCs Abbanes, aka "Honest Benny" is a roguish figure who has made and lost several fortunes over the course of his life. He has schemes within schemes, and half the caravan is currently blackmailed into working for him. Lyobun is benny's extremely high strung assistant who knows exactly how much money is invested where. Neurotic and loyal, he is the mirror image of Benny. Bui Six Point is the head of the caravan guard. He is a Pralori, he is tough, and he is mean. I described him as "Jayne from Firefly, on an elk." Mosscalm is a female hunter hired recently as a scout. Very private, and not good at social interactions. She's much better at staying motionless in a tree until game wanders by. Lady Featherjoy is an aristocrat from Selgos travelling with the caravan and constantly complaining about the lack of luxuries. Toff Redscroll is a scholar from Solung who may or may not be a fire mage. The players all started the game knowing this was going to be a murder mystery, that it was going to be "PG-13", and that none of teh PCs were going to be the murderer.

Sounds good Also, I am now nervous about Cosmic Zap due to your laugh react. That still happening?

I'll restrain myself to simply saying I am very excited to get Cosmic Zap ASAP

I don't have thoughts right now, but this is all very interesting to me, as I love both Maniria (which means I need to talk Caladraland) and Carmania.

Thanks for this, especially the investigation help. As for Roll20, yeah,HQG isn't a real minis-reliant game, so it's mainly there for references, be it handouts, character sheets, and maps out the area.

Everyone already has headsets, which is good. And other people requested 2.5 to 3 hour sessions, no longer. I can make that work, I think.

UPDATE: NOBODY HATES ME YET! Session 0 went well. None of the three players know Glorantha very well at all, though 2 are experienced gamers. I explained a bit about Glorantha as a setting in general (I basically summarized the "Unique Features of Runequest" section of the RQG book), and then I explained the Trader Princes of Maniria, the Wenelians, and the Manirian Road between Safelster and Esrolia. I did not go into the Five Arkats, the Lunar Empire, or the hero wars in general, as those will not be relevant to this game. I DID mention that part of why the Manirian Road became so profitable over the last few centuries was that seafaring was impossible... but then Dormal figured out how to get around the curse. I also made sure they were all on board with the basic concept of a murder mystery on a trading caravan. They had lots of questions about the political relationships between different cultures, and I explained them. I then presented them with a list of characters that were Names, occupations, homelands, and 3 runes. I then explained what runes are. The players chose the following characters: A Ditali cook / healer who was injured in the 1st skirmish of campaign lead by Greymane against Esrolia (weakness: Limp). The head of the caravan convinced him to join the caravan by promising him a solid amount of wealth after a few years of service, which may include a healing of his leg. He also forced the Ditali to give up dirt on a lot of political figures among the Ditali, threatening to find people willing to accuse him of cowardice and desertion in the Esrolia raid to the point he would never be married and may be exiled from his village. A textile merchant from Jubal. A true mistress of fashion, she dreams of high fashion for the trader princes and beyond. She got her start by stealing insect eggs from Ryzel used to make Jubal's famous scarlett dye. The Caravan head is blackmailing her to get information on the high societies of all the Trader Prince cities. An entertainer from the Nimistori Young commoner who left home and has spent the last year making money by entertaining the muleskinners in the caravan. She does not know she is the daughter of the caravan head. Finally, I didn't do a full discussion of sensitive topics, but I did tell them that (1) I was not running a player vs player game, (2) I wanted the game to be a "PG-13" rating (some violence, a bit of swearing, but not the Game of Thrones tv show by any measure), and (3) they should let me know publicly or in private about any specific concerns they have. There was also a request for "a little" combat, which should be easy to do So, yeah. We'll be gaming online for 2 hrs every Wednesday, so if it's ok I will give more updates and ask for help as I need it.

Obviously, if anyone has any suggestions on how to run a murder mystery, or how to run things in ROll20, I'm all ears. I will let you know how things go

I haven't been around much, but I'm still a Maniria fanboy

What the title says: due to current circumstances, I've volunteered to run a game online for some friends. I'm a little nervous because I haven't run anything real time in forever (like 16 years or so). Anyhow, here's a short summary on how things are going to go down: I'musing Heroquest rules because I know them better and I feel they will go smoother in online play with some less experienced players The game is set in Maniria, the hook is that a caravan has a murder, and the PCs need to solve it. The structure of the game is loosely based on the movie version of Clue. So... I'm making pre-gen characters that are Manirian equivalents of Mrs Peacock, Colonel Mustard, etc. The nice thing about this is that the characters are all relatively different. The "helpful" NPC is the main assistant to the trader prince master of the caravan (Tim Curry's character) The caravan head is Mr. Body. Mr Body was found dead, floating in a pond, with bite marks on him. If a PC rolls well enough, they will see they were an attempt to fake bite marks. A poor roll will make them think it was an ogre attack Mr Body was an elf friend, and he has a charm that tells elf allies that his death must be avenged. Thus, we have a motivation for the PCs: they need to figure out who killed Mr Body, where, and how before the Elves show up. If they don't have the killer caught, the Elves are likely to just turn the entire caravan into mulch. I will decide who the murderer is after the players choose their characters. But generally, Mr Body was blackmailing everyone, and had a spy / information network throughout Maniria. He was killed either to be free of the network, or to take it over. As for ogres, to butcher a line from the Clue movie, chaos was always a red herring. I'm unsure if actual play treads should go here, the Heroquest forum, or nowhere. I'm using Roll20 and Disord. I'm excited and nervous and I hope I don't suck as a GM (it's happened before) So, yeah, wish me luck!

I've been busy this week. My apologies for not being active anywhere. However, I found this picture from the 1970s, entitled "Fortress on the Rocks." It is now my inspiration of what Castle of God's Rock, Fortress-Palace of Spol, looks like:

BTW, this week's #PelandanGoals: Read up on vampires & Vivamort Try to read up on whatever I need to in order to start a thread on either Pelandan Aldryami, or First Age Pelanda.