Rob Darvall

Well my players identified the fact that the vale is comparitively small for grazing both sheep and cattle. So each morning both* are driven out to pasture either on the eastern slopes of Kargradus or via the reentrant behind White Bark that leads to the flats under Quivin peak.

*Both the sheep and cattle, not the players.

8 minutes ago, g33k said:

...

But also:  maybe instead there really was one singular victor to emerge... but if so, it is objectively impossible to be sure which one.

...

Which is, of course, terrifying; regardless of which being is the singular winner.

It's really confusing because the answer is yes (or perhaps no, or even both).

It's easier to comprehend (not understand, that's different) if you get what Nick and others are saying in your Western Myth question.

All these things are both true and false at the same time. No-one knows who won the final confrontation between Arkat and Nysalor/Gbaji because what came out was essentially all of them. They all looked into the void and became the void so which body walked out was irrelevant. Whether that is hopeful or dismaying depends on your Gloranthan viewpoint.

You find similar ideas in Odayla's pursuit of the Star Bear and Andrew Logan Montgomery's interpretation of the Fighting Pit in Orlanthi initiation. Your opponent is you/your shadow self etc.

As a drive-by thread-jacking:

Has anyone got hints as to how to include Ernaldans in cattle raids specifically in Six Seasons?

Also, back on topic, see if you can get Ned's Haraborn specific chargen worksheets. They're very handy.

On 10/7/2023 at 1:43 AM, Richard S. said:

"If they learn of or sense the presence of Chaos, they must
leap up, shout for their god, grab their weapons, and set off
to destroy it" CR:L133 (SB Rune Lord restrictions)

Rather answers:

On 10/4/2023 at 8:04 AM, mfbrandi said:

This is the dilemma as I see it:

• we have Gloranthan groups — possible PCs — who think even peaceful Chaos/illuminates must die
• we don’t want PCs to be evil

If you want to play a homicidal lunatic you can, but the system gives the GM the capacity to measure your life expectancy in game weeks, I.E. less than a session.

This also answers (for my table at least) the original question. Yeah you can play a techbro munchkin, but the system is created in ways that will foreshorten that experience if the GM wants their table to be free of it.

This ability to squash arseholes with universe-defined but mechanically vague consequences (Gift Carriers of the Sending Gods, Ralzakark, etc.), serves to keep the setting both nuanced, and remarkably ethno-nationalist free. It's just too hard to munchkin effectively (I've tried), and the setting is too CA hippy to bigot well.

For atmosphere watch a couple of Spaghetti Westerns. Gun (sword) fights at noon, honour culture, lots of young idiots with weapons and chips on their shoulders in New Pavis. Pissed-off tribesmen appearing ominously sihouetted on skylines, desperate chases through badlands, bleached skeletons in the dust for Prax. Hard-scrabble farmers under constant threat from nomadic tribes and bandits, "corrupt" local sheriffs (Rune lords/Priests), and a touch of Deliverance for the Zola Fel valley.

11 hours ago, davecake said:

Babeestor Gor is a Death cult - but more than that, their core role is as killers of those who break oaths - this includes guarding temples, but guardians who are prepared to use lethal force. Guarding is one of the many roles the BGs have, but that’s more like one of the tasks they might have, rather than a professional specialty - a BG who only guards and never seeks out oathbroakers is like a Storm Bull who only guards against Chaos but never goes to fight it, one who doesn’t really do the core task of the cult. 

Alternatively Babeester Gor guards the Earth and the initiates are her tools within time. So if the initiate is never called to hunt down an oathbreaker that is the will of the Goddess.
Unlike Humakt, for whom death IS the purpose, Babeester Gor has people killed for specific reasons. IMG at least, a Babeester Gorite must be called to hunt down and kill people (as opposed to defending her person, honour, or the temple). Hunting oathbreakers, defilers, etc. is a religious ritual, embarked on as seriously as an unfamiliar heroquest. Just as most other worshippers will never stray from the standard weekly temple rituals, many Gorites may never engage with such a quest. Being a random murder machine is either a desperation tactic in defense of the earth, or a serious slide toward chaos (as is any abuse of mythic power).

For mine, this also addresses some of the older depictions of these cultists:

What we were given is the face the cult presents to the world. Death 90%, sure, but Intimidation at 175% prevents a whole lot more problems. The older images stress just how FRIGHTENING these people are. After all, the temple is defended if most would-be attackers walk the other way. A guarantee of some serious-minded berserk hunting you across Sartar to take your goolies as a trophy may cause many to question their life choices. Particularly as said berserk has the physical and mythic backing of the biggest network on the lozenge.

On 5/12/2023 at 2:52 AM, mfbrandi said:

If modern Eurmali are professional performers, rather than those so damaged that they cannot assume a “normal” rôle in society, are “crazy” people nonetheless still touched by Trickster? What becomes of them, now?

Dionysos is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. Performers fall under the rubric of the god of madness IRL.

Eurmal has room for both the insane and the LeCoq style clowns. We have always been, and remain to a certain extent, part of a company that is semi-fringe dwelling. Eurmal as a god of clowns and madmen works for me; including being driven out of town, as per the English 1597 Vagabonds Act.

13 hours ago, DrGoth said:

Or put the wolf  to sleep. Pacifist healer soothing the savage beast and all. I was about to add befuddle. But befuddle talks about the subject using INT to overcome the effects. Does that mean the wolf couldn't shake it off or it couldn't be cast on it in the first place?  I'm guessing the former but...

Is there a "sooth the savage beast " spell?

If not my Glorantha now has a couple.  CA has a straight cha based one and Donandar gets a musical one.

14 hours ago, DrGoth said:

... the Far Placers got to the Far place, wanting to dump everything Solar,...[/Lunar/Harvar]

To reiterate: The various inhabitants could possibly pick up Elmal to defy Harvar. The rites still work but you're not tied to Harvar's worship practices. So Elmal is a 'revival' movement as a political statement. People have done dumber things as acts of defiance (cf Grizzly Peak).
This gives you in-game reasons to use the WF#15 Elmal stuff while keeping Monrough down south and a Yelmalian continuity in the north. 

3 hours ago, Wheel Shield said:

This year I really believe we're getting at least 4 new meaty books and who knows? Maybe some more. But I believe at least four. They've committed to at least four, and committed very publicly. This will be a good year and next year will be better yet. Starting in July.

This, and:

In a way we're getting a re-release of the game. Given the nature of the setting the gods and cults are not just bolt on tat to make it look good or to be spell banks for PCs. This stuff has been 50 years in the making, and is integral to the vision of the world. And as svenson's Elmal work shows, we're not done yet. I say we because much, if not most, of this work is done by fans. Often fans who've put their money where their mouths are in the most literal way, as is implied in Wheel Shield's post.

The Bird, Argent

on a field, Vert

surmounted by a Chief, Or

with three eggs, Gules

Being 'defiance in the swamp surmounted by the golden hope of survival as a people'.

6 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

I hate to speak for someone else, but I think he knows he is swimming against the stream. (I definitely could be wrong.)

The one where Elmal rises in the morning?

Even if he does know he's pushing uphill I'd like a variety of approaches to the question that will be compatible enough to continue to spark conversations. Too variant a cult and it'll just vanish.
 

The one that names Havar "Tightfist"; as in 'has a skinny dick'. PoV of a Far Point Elmali thane (modelled on various outback horsemen I have known)

1 hour ago, DrGoth said:

Well, I thought I saw a canon list somewhere that include wyrms footnotes #15 in canon, but not the rest.  So I was just wondering.

I suspect Nick is trying to get you to hire his team of roof-sharpeners. 😁 Just to make sure "giants" don't damage your house.

1 hour ago, mfbrandi said:

Your Glorantha may vary, but only a little bit? @svensson isn’t trying to force the rest of us to follow him,os):

  Hide contents

 

Woah there Seabiscuit. At no point do I say svenson can't do this. In fact I think it's a valuable idea (as I indicate earlier). I'm merely pointing out that there is soon to be Chaosium released material that will make 2 seperate cults harder to maintain as we go along. I've been Gregged often enough to know that I find retconning a pain. So avoiding that seems prudent.

Basically I'm advocating FOR a seperate Elmal cult as a schismatic movement within Yelmalio, because that'll generate plot hooks for my players. He did, after all, solicit for ideas.

As for ending the Yelmali/Elmal debate. NOPE. As I said in response to SD Leary further up-thread, I find it one of the most useful and productive arguments we've engaged in (far more so than Orlanthi Windmills or Trollkin Mating Habits). FWIW I even wrote in-world stuff defending the traditional Elaml cult. I think MOB published it in the second down under con compendium (away from books ATM).

47 minutes ago, svensson said:

@Rob Darvall

1. Elmal, Yelmalio, and how worshipers see it.

 My statement of 'that's not the way we do it, so what?' is from the believer's standpoint not a doctor of divinity's lectern.

It's not a matter of a 'doctor of divinity' but of what the worshippers experience on walking into a temple. Their god is THERE. An Elmali walking into a sun dome experiences this as would a Yelmalian walking into a shrine to Elmal. Both can go  'that's not the way we do it, so what?' but neither will deny that they worship the same god. Their experience is that they do not. In rules terms worship by either in either sacred space returns the rune points.

Elmal can be a seperate way to worship but not "...a cult that firmly believes that Yelmalio and Elmal are separate deities..." unless you're taking that extra step into variance which makes the 2 into distinct gods. 

3 hours ago, svensson said:

My idea here isn't to 'make Yelmalio with serial numbers filed off'. My intention is to make a cult that firmly believes that Yelmalio and Elmal are separate deities with separate myths who share similar but not identical portfolios.

This runs afoul of the 'real' evidence of effective worship in each others' temples. I think it's one thing to be saying 

3 hours ago, svensson said:

'So what? That's not how we do that and it doesn't matter to us."

and another to be saying 'well I didn't REALLY get this power from Yelmalio cos I'm an Elmali' despite being in the big Y's temple, using his rites etc. Neither your hypothetical Baptist or Lutheran denies Christ as their saviour. So being able to worship effectively, which in Glorantha has tangible effects, in each others sacred places indicates that this IS the same god.
It is possible, naturally this IS fiction after all, to have YGV in this respect. However, given Jeff's repeated insistence on their being the same I get the feeling this is going to be a pretty big divergence from where Glorantha goes, making it harder to sustain over the long term.

51 minutes ago, svensson said:

And just to digress a little bit, it occurs to me that the Yelmalion basic sense of xenophobia and their deep seated need for social control is the single major reason why they abandoned the horse aspect of their faith.

1) Did they abandon it or is this just an artifact of 'Borderlands' etc where Prax killed off all the horses? Most of our Yelmalio information comes from 'Sun County', 'Sandheart' etc.

2) I can see a religious imperitive for abandoning horses. MUCH less danger of breaking a gease if the object (a horse) is rarely around you. A reverance for horses curtailing their use to the point where they become a logistical burden.

I'm sure there's other reasons but I think the loss of horses (in Sun Dome County at least) came first leading to the insularity.

13 minutes ago, SDLeary said:

The reason for the focus on Elmal ...

 

Another is that, regardless of how you choose, all-encompassing Yelmalio, schismatic Elmali, or simply Yelmalians as the up-tight pricks in Suntown, these debates prompt thinking about Glorantha in different ways. I've probably learnt more from the whole Elmal/Yelmalio thing than from any other single debate (possibly because it keeps recurring so often)

I can use an Elmali revival in the Far Place as a reaction to Harvar so an Elmal cult is of value to me. See also:

22 minutes ago, SDLeary said:

social dynamics that are simply too good to pass up

AKA plot hooks.

I do use Yelmalians as the up-tight pricks in Suntown.

I also have a Yelmalian player who literally provides "light in the dark" for the party. His cult emphasis on duty also is a useful curb on the player's youthful tendency toward murderhoboing.

All of these employ different styles of play and produce slightly different avatars of Glorantha. The focus on Elmal helps clarify those different styles.

On 4/4/2023 at 8:26 PM, svensson said:

Would it be too much to ask to have the hero be a Rhino Rider?

Yeah, probably. 😉

Would it be too much to ask to have the hero be a Rhino?

Asking for a nephew.

4 hours ago, hipsterinspace said:

I think they’ve stated that the only Thunder Brothers to get the full named treatment are Vinga and Hedkoranth, that the others are treated like Maruts, mostly unnamed petty gods of thunder.

Which means we get to create our own local sub-cults.
Briian God of Cheese is back.

On 3/23/2015 at 8:48 AM, fmitchell said:

Today, we've got the persistence of Christian extremism, the rise of Muslim extremism, global warming, global recession, global terrorism, a widening gap between rich and poor ... so many catastrophes to choose from.

I'd hypothesise that todays is the Zombie flick'; an upgrade on Day of the Triffids, but it's usually still our fault. The Zombies are current angst about our own self-immolation.

8 hours ago, g33k said:

The substantive presence of Oakfed in Prax -- not just as a historical feature, but "Oakfed Shaman" as a viable/playable PC, & Oakfed (the spirit) being a Big Deal -- speaks to there being substantive (if scattered) presence of trees in Prax.

YGMV

Grassfires. Fast running, and if the grass is even waist high very bloody dangerous. And they turn REALLY quickly. You can be hosing down a 2 foot high fire and in less than a second have a six foot wall of flame in your face (I'm grateful for the CFA's PPE).

Plus they feel malicious. I've seen fire creep across the dusty remnants of a suburban lawn to "get to" the dry kikuyu stands on the other side. I knew it was just physics but it felt like the fire was playing us.

Prax after a good season could have a very high fine fuel load and go off like a bomb. 

On 3/7/2023 at 1:05 AM, Leingod said:

Elmal’s “Hill of Gold” is “Elmal Guards the Stead.” Elmal’s spear and shield end up with Orlanth; he gave them willingly and received Orlanth’s shield and regency over the Storm Tribe, sure, but that’s just a change in context. He faces three wicked foes and each leaves him broken and bleeding; the foes are different and he actually won those fights, yes, but the important part is the “left bleeding and broken but gets back up” part. One foe targets his virtue rather than his body; that virtue is loyalty rather than chastity, but nonetheless. 

These are all contextual changes, well within the scope of regional and cultural variations in worship. Relationships, motivations, and so on often differ even within a single group’s myths, much less between different ones.

On 3/7/2023 at 5:59 AM, mfbrandi said:

Well, it depends what you mean.

If we take the divine identities seriously — Kargzant = Lightfore = Yelmalio = Elmal = [a whole bunch of other small and/or cold suns] — then you already know it, possibly in several variants. One starts “once upon a time, Yelmalio …” Any Hill of Gold myth about a little sun is in that sense a Kargzant Hill of Gold myth. If you like, these are the stories with the god name replaced by a variable (story as complex predicate?): if true of Lightfore, also true of Kargzant.

Another sense is the events that happened to the god in Godtime. We know them in outline, but bits may be disputed, even changeable. We may come to know the events better — or worse — in time.

Finally(?), there is the question of whether we find Hill of Gold-type stories in which the name “Kargzant” appears — especially interesting if told by people who don’t know the salient divine identities. Well, we might find such, but it would be too strong to say we should find them. Worshippers can — and will — have incomplete knowledge of their deities, no?

Others may see this as obvious or untenable, however:
ALL the Little Suns have a HoG. ...the important part is the “left bleeding and broken but gets back up”... The details of who does what to remove which power is culturally variable and gives each culture access to different powers. BUT there are always "missing/stolen" powers that an initiate must sacrifice another power to gain if they so quest. 

So FREX an Elmali performing a Yelmalio HoG quest would loose Fireblade but gain Catseye, or similar (away from books ATM). 

So flogging dead lizards is of value to me at least.

On 3/4/2023 at 1:51 AM, mfbrandi said:

... Yelmalio cult ...so old-school and die-hard (or not at all), that the cult will have no truck with newfangled nonsense like Time and balance has an appeal. ... the Compromise is as alien to them as any other compromise.

For mine this is perhaps the core of Yelmalio; NO compromises.

We WILL go up the hill, get beaten repeatedly, and endure.

We WILL stand on the wall as the darkness decends because that's our duty.

There may be "Another Way" but we refuse it because it lessens us.

This placing of duty first is what lends Yelmalio to being a soldier's god. His faith empowers the individual to "stand and be still, to the Birkenhead drill".

Well we've got time to save up for it then.