EricW

There is an interesting parallel to the real world. The more you know the location of something, the less you know about where it is heading. God learners sought to create a comprehensive map of all creation, but even the God Time isn't perfectly static. Their map was wrong before they finished it. Using their map as a guide instead of their hearts led to subtly flawed heroquest outcomes. The defects got worse over time, until something snapped.

Pressure drop. Tornadoes and cyclones can cause a tremendous drop in air pressure near the eye. The record is an abrupt drop to 850 millibars, equivalent to suddenly being transported to 5000ft altitude, comparable to the pressure drop in the cabin of a commercial airliner. Not noticeable if you are sitting calmly waiting for the aircraft to take off, but a big deal if your adrenalin is pumping and you are running around trying to do stuff.

I don’t know - perhaps we should summon a greater darkness ancestor and ask them what happened!

It just seems a bit odd that as you approach Orlanth's realm of Middle Air, you run out of air ;-). As for violating Earth physics, we're talking about a realm where water only runs downhill because Magasta jumped into the void left by the destruction of the spike, and rallied all the waters of the world to help.

Does the air actually get thin as you go higher? If you are heading into Orlanth’s middle air, there is a case the air might actually get thicker. The wyrms might have metaphysical reasons for avoiding Orlanth’s realm

I think there are some fascinating dynamics at work. Some people accept the right of authority to exist, but believe they have the absolute right to find loopholes in the rules. Other people grudgingly accept that some common rules are necessary, but do not accept that authority has an automatic right to exist - yet they are much more enthusiastic about upholding those mutually agreed rules they choose of their own free will to accept. And of course there are an infinite number of variations and alternatives. Some of it is cultural, some of it personality. Sometimes people change their perspective when they see other cultures. Sometimes they carry their views with them, like a shield, refusing to bend to change circumstances. I've lived in different countries, and associated with many different people, yet I doubt I have done more than scratch the surface. There are plenty of cultures I simply didn't get at all. The only common theme is almost everyone I met is convinced that their viewpoint is the right solution, no matter how different from everyone elses ideas ;-).

The Lunar spell "Chaos Gift" is a perfect example of why Lunar philosophers are wrong about chaos. Every time chaos gift is cast, there is a small chance that the recipient will receive two chaos features. But what if when they roll on those two chaos features, each separate feature doubles up again, so now they have four. Then if (this fantastic stroke of luck continues), they have 8, then 16, then 32, then 64, then 128, then 256, then 512, then 1024... After an extremely improbably (but not impossible) 64 doublings, the formerly ordinary person who cast a single chaos gift spell receives an incredible 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 chaos features. From a single casting of chaos gift, a new major chaos god has erupted into the world. Lets call this new god Wakboth. They have fifteen minutes to wrench the sun out of the sky, to stop time and prevent their chaos gift from expiring. For this reason every casting of "Chaos Gift" could cause the end of the world. Obviously its incredibly unlikely any single casting would create such a catastrophe, but the very next casting could create a new god - there is a non zero probability. Even if you don't get a new god, the odds of a casting producing a spectacular result are surprisingly high, given each reusable casting is a new chance to lock in a terrifying array of chaotic abilities. I suspect if we were to truly respect this game mechanic, every Lunar regiment should have a probability of someone who has the hidden ability to go full krjalki in a tense situation.

Don’t forget the trickster - especially with Humakti in the party :-).

Any Lunar source material might be a good starting point. If you criticise the openly chaotic Lunar Empire you will be surprised at how many people jump on to defend them, even though the Lunar Empire is mostly portrayed as one of the bad guys. The empire seems particularly popular in European cultures, which tend to have a different perspective on the role of government to the USA. Lunar characters are entirely playable. In some ways they are more interesting than Orlanthi (ducking for cover), because instead of a simple black and white morality, "chaos bad, kin good", you have this delicious dichotomy where lunar chaos hunters sometimes have to be nice to chaotics under the protection of the goddess, or risk civil repercussions - at least until they receive proof that those chaotics are doing something naughty, and receive official sanction to act on their evidence of wrongdoing. Don't get me wrong, my personal sympathies tend towards Arkat and Argarath. But a good case can be made that both these heroes were ruthless butchers, wrecking the peace, tolerance and stability that gods obliquely associated with chaos tried to bring to the world.

I wonder if Lunars have a problem with soldiers becoming disillusioned by what they see while serving the empire. That would be my default explanation for high profile leaders who suddenly decide to lead a quiet life. See it all the time in business - employees who are not quite p*ssed off enough to leave, but no longer feel a burning urge to perform.

Pick a size 🙂. Maybe pigmy Rhino size? Almost as tall as a man but much bulkier? they had to remove internal walls, but the floor was still intact. Give the PCs a chance, maybe a mythos roll, and a chance to notice whatever is in the locked room is very big. “The nethermost caverns,” wrote the mad Arab, “are not for the fathoming of eyes that see; for their marvels are strange and terrific. Cursed the ground where dead thoughts live new and oddly bodied, and evil the mind that is held by no head. Wisely did Ibn Schacabao say, that happy is the tomb where no wizard hath lain, and happy the town at night whose wizards are all ashes. For it is of old rumour that the soul of the devil-bought hastes not from his charnel clay, but fats and instructs the very worm that gnaws; till out of corruption horrid life springs, and the dull scavengers of earth wax crafty to vex it and swell monstrous to plague it. Great holes secretly are digged where earth’s pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl.” (The Festival, by HP Lovecraft)

Have they burned the body? Or is it sitting there, waiting for some ghastly ritual to reanimate it? If Lavinia is still alive Wilbur can still pass for human, so he is not in a desperate hurry yet, and Noah has a copy of the Necronomicon. Wilbur might decide it’s worth the trouble to resurrect Noah, if he hasn’t learned what he needs to control his brother. A resurrected Noah would be a nightmare, because some rituals like essential saltes would cure his dementia and restore his full faculties. Dont underestimate Noah, a back woods self educated wizard who almost singlehandedly engineered the end of the world.

I usually apply to flesh ward first, There is a case for doing the opposite, applying to armour first. Imagine the horror of seeing flesh broken, then instantly reknitting, growing severed limbs, becoming whole as quickly as it is damaged, while the evil sorcerer laughs at the futility of those trying to hurt her. Kind of like watching The Thing absorb bullets. Sanity check? 🙂

The King in Yellow appears to impart some knowledge or insight which tears at the sanity of the victim. Just reading the second chapter of the play is enough to mess someone up, but the physical presence of the king is far worse, in the palace in Carcosa people are trapped in a permanent now, suffering for all eternity, unaware that time has passed. There are hints the secret knowledge may somehow take people’s security away, maybe show them the world is in some way unreal. There are also hints the king is somehow associated with unconstrained creativity or change - Carcosa flows and changes every time you stop looking at something, when you look back something is different. Of course we can’t know the exact nature of the corruption, otherwise we would fall victim to it 😉

Exactly my point. You cannot defeat Gbaji by becoming Gbaji. My theory is Arkat defeated Gbaji by renouncing Gbaji’s magical parasitism, by owning up to his personal misdeeds and accepting punishment from the gods for his transgressions.

I don’t think there is evidence Humakt can tell which of his followers is illuminated. Illuminates can identify other illuminates, but nobody can use divine magic to identify another illuminate. If Humakt could identify illuminated followers, he could pass this information on via divination. As for the death rune shattering, nobody who suffers the sword breaker oath can wield a sword, even the unbreakable sword. And the destruction of the unbreakable sword clearly did not end Humakt’s mastery of death. Maybe by breaking, the unbreakable sword died and returned to the hand of its master. My suggestion that Arkat suffering all the spirits of reprisal for all his misdeeds all at once, by atoning and accepting responsibility rather than embracing Gbaji’s path of spiritual parasitism, seemed a neat explanation, but obviously highly speculative. I mean you can’t defeat Gbaji and embrace his gift at the same time, surely.

Arkat was an illuminate according to Cults of Terror. All possible - though it was unbreakable. I proposed a sudden application of the sword breaker curse as a reason why the sword might have broken. Speculation. Gbaji was about temptation, seducing people to embrace chaos of their own free will. He certainly would have attempted to talk Arkat out of attacking him. Sorry maybe I should have made it clearer that some of what I said was speculative, but it seems a neat explanation.

There is one possible explanation. After the battle with Gbaji, Arkat was no longer an illuminate, at least in the sense of being able to escape the consequences of his actions. The sword broke because he was a dishonourable Humakti. This in turn implies the final battle was won when Arkat rejected temptation and chose to atone and accept responsibility - something no dark side illuminate ever does. If Arkat had failed to atone, the being which walked out of the tower would have been Wakboth. Gbaji didn’t attack Arkat, he tempted Arkat, by offering to surrender all his power, making Arkat the most powerful being in Glorantha. Arkat wrestled with his own inner darkness.

Official execution implies you keep a criminal alive, and who has the resources to do that, unless you are expecting a ransom? Maybe someone who really upsets the tribe will be kept alive for the next holy day. There are plenty of cults active in Orlanthi society which have no problem with gruesome executions, so someone who hurts a woman would probably just be handed over to Barbeester Gore fanatics, providing everyone can watch.

Hmm. Your mad prophet could actually be kind of dangerous. 35 points of sanity from becoming an antagonist. Maybe the mad prophet knows some horrible ritual which would really help the investigators, but they must persuade the mad prophet to help them perform it, he's frightened to do so for a reason he cannot explain...

A plot to tamper with the climate - I love it. But it might be risky territory, some people might see a climate scenario as a mockery of their real world concerns. Something which substantially increased cloud cover worldwide for a sustained period would cause global temperatures to plummet, or a series of major volcanic eruptions. Increasing cloud cover is almost something current human technology can achieve, so mythos monsters should have no problem, other than opposition from other mythos beings. See Toba Catastrophe Theory.

I’m not sure human beliefs would survive prolonged successful contact with the mythos, though they might keep fragments of their original ideas, like a desire to breed a race of superhumans. There is a book, Macroscope, where the main character has 2 personalities. The good person has been in charge most of his life, the bad, submerged personality is the greatest genius the Earth ever produced, but his reawakening would be a global catastrophe. The genius was the product of a breeding program who decided he didn’t want to serve, so he hid behind the second personality. However they are dealing with a second catastrophe, an alien signal from space which seems wholly malign, so some people want the evil genius to be awoken to solve their alien problem, regardless of the other consequences. My point is you could have all sorts of fun. Some fractional human alien mythos hybrids maintain their human appearance, are not even aware they aren’t human - like the main character out of The Shadow Over Insmouth. You could have Thule factions fighting each other, escaped products of breeding programs running around, people who don’t know who they are, or who precariously struggle to maintain their humanity, all sorts of fun.

Sure. Trigger warning, some people might find this politically offensive. I’m providing this as a code example only, not to push a political view on this forum. All the code is javascript in the page itself, so you can create your own by changing the list of stock phrases. Every time you refresh it generates a new random essay. https://desirableapps.com/kant.html

Very nice. The only suggestion is to make the handouts PDFs rather than images, that would allow you to generate multi page handouts, and PDFs are more durable. Some email services resize email images whether you want them resized or not, but are less invasive when it comes to PDFs. The only downside of PDFs is they don't work on some Android devices. The other thing you would do is include a Cthulhu kant generator, for creating insane babble. There are plenty of examples on the web including source code. Hours of fun.

Nyarlathotep is the ultimate mythos shapeshifter, the most powerful being in the cosmos except for Azathoth, his master. Interestingly investigators won't necessarily die if they encounter him, though they can expect some robust san checks if they get too involved. Nyarlathotep often gives the impression he just wants people to understand the cosmos, so he might appear as a helper or a false friend, provide a sanity shattering magic spell which is just what investigators need to solve their current dilemma. "Under the pyramids" is one of my favourite Nyarlathotep tales.