Rob Darvall

4 hours ago, Mythforger said:

But i fell in love with the world, and want to learn as much as i can,

You have doomed yourself, but it's a fun doom to have.

11 hours ago, jajagappa said:

My Imther also presented Orlanth as the Trickster, ... (it's clearly visible in my New Lolon Gospel material). 

Thank you. I've been racking my brain over where that idea was located. The boy came to the same conclusion (that Orlanth is trickster) for sound logical reasons (he broke the world) and I wanted more detail for him.

Most recently? Yakety Sax. (A Pavis drug deal went wrong)

On 8/13/2020 at 3:41 PM, g33k said:

It's useful that the fandom has at least a rough concensus about canon, though... enough that they're sharing the same frame of reference when they argue about it online.

At first I thought "yes", but then I remembered the joy of having someone on the Digest completely reframe what I thought I knew so I had to learn it again and re-explore its ramifications. Beyond simple facts of the order of "Boldhome is in Satar" I find that differing frames of reference give me more pleasure. They can reopen the game for me.

Canon is the loot box from which you take what you need for your adventure.

Everything is "canon enough" to be used. If it sparks an idea, steal it. Argue about it online later. (That's fun too) {Just avoid windmills}😁

2 hours ago, Leingod said:

Argrath's an honorable man right up until it gets in the way of killing the Lunars, at which point, Illuminate he is, he casts it aside without a thought and doesn't face the normal consequences of doing so.

But "What deeds could be done in the name of honor?"

6 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

named companions, so important companions of the great Argrath (at least in the eyes of "victorious" historians) are killed and not resurrected. How one of the most powerful leaders of the world is not able to resurrect his best followers ?

Probably because they are "named companions, so important companions of the great Argrath". If you're fighting them you take extra precautions to make absolutely sure those bastards stay dead. You know who they are so you can set up particular, personal hells just for them.
They are actually strategic considerations and so worthy of a strategic response.

On 6/5/2020 at 6:57 PM, Vile Traveller said:

Well, that's your problem, right there. Technically, traditionally, and tectonically no book including heroquesting rules can ever be published.

What it needs is a Kigor Litor write up. But the combination of the two may destroy the world.

5 minutes ago, Leingod said:

 perilously close to "White Red Man's Burden" rhetoric.

 

Re: Various persons burden rhetoric. This generalisation about empires and stability has been made for everything from Hamurabi onward. The examples I have seen are mostly drawn from research into the Mongol Empire. How the Mongols managed the white man's burden I have yet to discover.

1 hour ago, Leingod said:

Because policies like the forced relocations of entire populations when they object to the whole "being conquered" thing and such just isn't enough when it isn't happening right there in Dragon Pass, I suppose.

This being the nature of empire it's not restricted to the Lunars.
That said, the opposite seems just as bad. The times of greatest peace, stability, and prosperity are under strong empires. (NB this is not to say EVERYONE got peace etc, just a greater proportion).

For my money these conflicts are an important part of the Gloranthan dichotomies. 'We are all us'/ 'no one can make you do anything' and we'll kill you to make you recognise that.

Thanatar.
I read it when CoT first came out and became illuminated. It was the first time I understood why people would become chaotic. 

I can even see a peaceful transition and succession planning in the more civilised temples. The old high priest being a willing sacrifice so that their knowledge lives on.

If ever I have a RW Evil Empire it will be because I've learnt Thanatar's cult secrets.

Then Gaumata's Vision. The little people are doomed if the Good Guys win. They're even more doomed if the Good Guys lose.

21 minutes ago, John Biles said:

I think bringing back Sheng had to be deliberate on Argath's part and generally reflects that Argath is the same kind of monomaniac that Arkat and the EWF leaders were.  

Or that he worked with the tools he was given.

Monomaniacal I'll agree with. He had to be to defeat (if he did) the Lunar Empire. No one but a single minded fanatic (or group of them) could have done so from the position Sartar/Heortland had in 1615.

And yes bringing back Sheng was crazy and probably desperate. So was releasing/enabling The Crimson Bat. Or building Lord Death on a Horse. Or any of the other answers to the Hero Wars. "The land is afflicted with a hero."

The fall of empires is always bloody, traumatic and generally devestating for the populace. It could be argued that sacrificing populations to the Bat would be a better outcome in terms of numbers than what it took to eliminate the beast. The victims might disagree.

Emperors murder innocents. That comes with the job. Sheng or Daxdarius, there's no difference from the PoV of killing the innocent. Only the choice of innocent varies. 

Satar might be the exception. I can't recall his history well enough off the top of my head.

I'm combining it with the Bushido and War Law battle tables to run combat for groups over 15 in number.

7 hours ago, BlindPumpkin said:

there is no way to regain Orlanth rune points weekly if we follow holy days by RAW: Orlanth has no established weekly holy days, and participating in Ernalda rituals only regains Orlanth rune points during High and Seasonal Holy Day rites.

Which works to put time pressure on the party. They have adventured. Now they have to bolt back to the nearest shrine to recover the RP they expended. Or they have to keep enough RP in reserve to create their own temporary shrine and worship ceremony. Which means they discover WHY worship is communal and Priests are serious players in the world.

1 hour ago, mikuel said:

 They will probably want better stuff, like armor and weapons.  How would they get money to buy that stuff?  They live in an isolated village where there is not really an economy. 

There is definitely an economy, just not a cash economy. A barter and favor economy as Dissolv says. The price lists were for the benefit of Pavis games and the like where you are running semi-murder hobos in the outdoor dungeon with associated mercantile village.

Some potential armour getting:

Inheritance. you get a few bits and pieces from the household. Particularly a strong hat and spear so you can participate in the Fyrd.

Fyrd service. Outstanding service merits rewards from your chief. Possibly woad, protection spells, or armour. Also remembering that their mothers may well have protective spells. I'm damn sure I'd cast them on my kids before battle.

Loot. Take it from your enemies. Six Seasons has a bunch of those.

Finding old stuff in odd places. Everything from a couple of flint arrow heads to EWF harness. 

Make the getting part of play.

3 hours ago, Leingod said:

I feel like the difference between the Elminster and WoD examples and how I've seen Argrath used so far are substantial enough that I'm not really worried about the metaplot sidelining anyone's characters, personally. So far, there aren't many actual published adventures I've seen where all the focus is on what Argrath or Kallyr or Leika are doing and the heroes are just being pushed from one set-piece of NPCs doing things to another. Quite the opposite, in fact; in general the actual adventures I've read seem to do a pretty good job at making whatever the heroes are doing feel like it's very important, even if it's not the most important thing going on in Dragon Pass at that exact moment.

It's not like there's any suggestion, even in King of Sartar, the book all about the story of Argrath, that Argrath was at all the most interesting places doing all the most interesting things at all times. It even provides the easy "out" to let your group do one or more of Argrath's claimed deeds by bringing up that Argrath is a title and whoever the Argrath was, they probably didn't do everything Argrath is said to have done and were just credited with that stuff much later.

This has come up in discussions about Pendragon and the GPC, too, and I think the same general advice I gleaned from there applies: Don't treat it as if everything that's written down in there has to come up in your own campaign. Certainly don't think it has to take center stage. Your campaign is the story of your characters; Argrath is the hero of his story, not your story (unless you want one of your characters or even the group itself to be the Argrath, in which case that problem is solved a different way). And just because Argrath defeats a Lunar army doesn't mean your group has to beat two or else what they're doing doesn't matter.

I note that both Kallyr and Leika, the well established NPCs, get sidelined and Argrath of Pavis/Whitebull/some-other-vague-ekename sits as a place holder for ...the PCs. If they fail then "Argrath" succeeds pushing the metaplot forward and handing you plot hooks. If the PCs succeed then "Argrath" succeeds and the metaplot hands you the next plot hook in the form of Argrath's next challenge. 

PCs can become the messiah {1} (and /or very naughty boys) depending on their own actions. It's not that Argrath assumed some of what the players do, it's that what the players do makes them "Argrath". They become liberator/messiahs to go on to greatness or be crucified (or both) depending on their actions and the roll of the dice.

For my purposes it's the plot hooks that matter. If the canon generates them well and good. If my players derail them "Argrath" means I still have ways to run the Cradle/Windstop/Dragonrise without forcing my players into a set outcome for THEIR adventure.

{1} Concept{2} shamelessly stolen from Andrew Logan Montgomery  Six Seasons in Sartar https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/313871

{2} The multiple messiahs concept also underpins Monty Python's Life of Brian; as the final long shot can imply.

2 hours ago, GAZZA said:

OK having just read Greg's essay on why he did it, and following it with that... can we make this official? Nick's answer to this mess is perfectly suited to lazy buggers like me that don't want to get Elmal sauce all over my nice Praxian based River of Cradles/Borderlands/Sun Country game.

Both this for my Pavis campaign AND I want a solid Elmal/ Yelmalio conflict in my Far Place stuff. I know. Unadulterated greed. 

1613.

I can play into 1625 as campaign from there.

Going backwards is harder.

4 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

-kin works too, I suppose, though it's obviously more vague. 

I suppose "scion" could work. "Argabscion", etc. Though it's a mouthful and less elegant. I'm also not a huge fun of stuffing latinate words into Orlanthi names, but I have a bias there. 

EDIT: Scots/Northern English -bairn might work too (cognate to Nor/Swe "barn" and Ice/Dan "börn")

And so we get representations of regional dialects. That I can actually pronounce at the table.

Works for me.

8 hours ago, sufiazafran said:

Thank you all, really really useful, I'm going to play that scene on the next session inshallah.

Yeah, I imagined it like a really really deep throat singing, something like this: 

 

With an added layer of the virtuoso use of echo and space.

Frex

Not the pitch but the reverb. So your throat singer boucing the sound off rocks etc.

Or adapt the archaic Scots "Ilk". So Lothar ilk Kangbran, or possibly Lothar Kangbrans Ilk/ Kangbranilk.

Part of honour, IMO, lies with the individual's concept of themselves.

Is the combat "an embarrassing and demeaning waste of fist" (Prattchett, T. 2002)?

Mine get bored and mock their PC allies.
One IS a PC who can shift between his Rhino host and a sacred Rhino Horn Knobkerrie when his PC ally uses the sacred formula "Jo-kyu I choose you".

12 hours ago, soltakss said:

If Dorastor wasn't a cursed, evil chaos nest, it would be a sacred place to Orlanth.

Given Ragnaglar's place in the pantheon, maybe it is a sacred place to Orlanth. Just a negative one.