EricW

6 minutes ago, ZedAlpha said:

In the HeroQuest game I ran a few years ago, one of the PCs--a Eurmali Trickster--became Illuminated through a Heroquest called "How Eurmal Got The Infinity Rune (And Then Forgot Where He Put It)." We ran Illumination as something that was ultimately frustrating for them, but helped them develop a lot more empathy than they previously had for their fellow sentients. They didn't go mad with power because they started that way as a trickster--they became a bit less jerk-y overall.

An illuminated trickster wouldn't necessarily know they were illuminated. I mean, the ability to break all the rules without feeling guilty? Trickster can already do that. Join other cults? Why bother? Trickster can supply an endless variety of interesting magic. I mean, Trickster is adept at lying to his own worshippers - including the illuminates.

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

...and reward them with Illumination, the power-gamer's dream? 🙂

Illumination should have dangerous consequences, otherwise everyone would be doing it.

The slightest hint of illumination could lead to accusations the PC is a Lunar spy. Illuminated Lunars would be attracted to the PC. They could have all sorts of suspicious Lunar interactions, like Lunars acting hostile, arresting the PC party, then suddenly everything is OK when the priest sees them - though the priest wants a private word with the illuminate. "What was that all about?" - the PC better be quick on their feet with a plausible lie.

Any attempt to power game could lead to hostile divination and accusation. Maybe better to kill the witnesses, even if they are friends. And of course, there is always the possibility of meeting an Arkati who assumes any illuminate they don't know is Gbaji - especially if the PC starts being careless about abusing their power, and the Arkati was drawn to investigate the PC.

You could have a lot of fun with this. Tempt the player to break the rules, like finding a scroll of sorcery skill, or other slightly forbidden magic. Put them in scenarios where they solve the problem by using the forbidden magic. Encourage them to convince themselves that rule breaking is justified by the greater good - I mean sorcery isn't chaos, and a little sorcery makes a great secret weapon which can save the party.

On 9/4/2023 at 6:31 PM, DucksMustDie said:

But the Storm Bulls would probably say ´No thanks´ to a date night with Babs. Even they have limits 🙂 

Trickster would get jealous!

34 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

Can I share this insight (whole post, not just that excerpt) with the RuneQuest group over on Facebook? I think it’s very helpful, and more people should see it. Full attribution to “EricW from BRP Central” or whatever name you’d prefer to go by. Or please do it yourself, if you’re a member over there.

EricW is good - thanks, flattered 🙂

The way I think of Shamen, a shaman is like someone who spends all their time looking at Tik Tok or youtube and posting comments to friends while walking down the street. They barely have time to learn physical skills because they're always messaging people. Occasionally they start babbling about some video they saw, which means absolutely nothing to anyone else around them because nobody else has seen the video.

But boy are they well informed about esoteric stuff, so if the crops start withering, or someone has a sore which won't heal, the guy or girl with the mobile phone has access to the solution. Or perhaps the video they watched was total nonsense published by scammers. 

Wasn't the chaos god Atyar believed to be lost in the catacombs of a Kraloralan city, or stranded on a remote lost island? Maybe too overpowered for your scenario. 

I wonder if one of the most disturbing aspects for Red Moon advocates is the White Moon doesn't appear to provide any magic, or anything a third age Gloranthan would recognise as magic. An unsettling prelude to the metaphysical upheaval which follows Moonfall - third age power crazed red moonies fearing the loss of magical mastery which elevates them above other mortals. . 

You can believe without wanting, so the characters in the movie “Warlock” believed in the magic of the Warlock, but didn’t also want to be warlocks.

Of course, not everyone reads such books and is repulsed by what they read.

HP Lovecraft wrote “The history of the Necronomicon”, that the book was outlawed as heretical because people who read it attempted monstrous experiments.

There’s a great movie “Dagon”, which is a great intro the Cthulhu insanity and belief.

Lovecraft's The Haunter of the Dark might be a good template

Humans discover a horrific artefact which summons a being who provides insane magical revelations in return for blood sacrifice. The old "church" congregation was arrested and shut down, but the creature (possibly a manifestation of Nyarlathotep) still manifests in the Church of Starry Wisdom, which nobody dares to enter. Once the monster makes contact with your mind you're doomed. 

If the church hadn't been forcefully shut down, the worshipers likely would have become coenobite like - totally twisted and revelling in their wicked inhuman knowledge, rapidly losing their connection to humanity. 

9 hours ago, Grimmshade said:

That's what surprised me the most; it doesn't look like the PC lost any sanity for outright murder. 

I don't think I'd force insanity/delusions on the PC at this point, but next time they are insane I'd definitely create some delusions about that murder. Have the PC see the man in public, maybe receive a phone call from him, or see his face in a fire, etc. 

I think murdering someone even in self defence is worth a san check. People in desperate situations like soldiers can get inured to it to an extent, but a lot of them come back pretty messed up. I know someone who had do so something horrible in Iraq, I think what he did was right and justified, but what he had to do to achieve that justified outcome was so horrible it left him profoundly f*cked up. At a fundamental level he cannot reconcile committing such an act with being the good person he imagines himself to be, and actually is.

I think horribly murdering someone without desperate provocation is a pretty insane act. I think I remember reading somewhere to say sacrifice someone for a grisly magic ritual you have to *fail* a SAN check to proceed - so murdering people in gross ways gets easier as you lose sanity. Should probably lose sanity as well just for committing such an act, a save means you convinced yourself your action was justified. 

Most cults are recognisable ad sub cults of other cults. For example, the cult of skiving teenagers who want to fake illnesses who avoid their chores is a Trickster subcult (the Malia subcult is the version where the illnesses are real, offers spells like "school plague" and "defer exam"). Poison - Black Fang hero cult. It's pretty hard to think of a cult which isn't derivative of one of the existing cults? 

I'd be surprised if there were no devices for firing toxic or irritating compounds in the 1920s. There would have been no problem creating a device to produce pressure on demand, everyone knew about carbide lamps, devices which drip water onto calcium carbide to produce acetylene, which burns with a brilliant white light. My grandpa showed me once, if you add too much water they fizz up very rapidly. Or they could just have used a water pistol action. As for the irritant, extract of crushed onion or chilli would have worked fine. 

I wonder if there might be some insane level of conformity, amongst the leaders at least. My thinking is, no communication is required, if everyone thinks the same. Such suppression of individuality would stink of chaos. 

I would have thought Trickster is mostly about cheating when it comes to gambling, he is full of illusion and deceit.

The moral relativist path to chaos doesn’t explain why chaos gift gives you a taint, and implies illuminates with mutations might actually not be chaotic.

Lunars casting chaos gift are acting within the moral bounds of their society - so why the taint? 

I suspect while immorality, acting against your conscience, might lead to chaos, copying the godtime betrayal of glorantha’s enemies always leads to chaos, even if illuminates can conceal their treachery with Gbaji deception.

This further implies Sedenya is an agent or manifestation of Wakboth, the chaos gift corruption she provides must contain a fragment of that great betrayal.

10 hours ago, g33k said:

A Lanbrili idea came to me last night... pretty potent, I think, so IMHO it needs to be HeroQuested-for...

"False Worship"  (a new, Lanbril-exclusive Skill)
A Lanbril thief may study the lore & mannerisms of a Cult, and insert themselves as a "visiting" co-cultist from a far-distant city, and then attend worship, seek instruction, etc.  They may potentially learn virtually any "Cult Secret" this way.

If they have at least one Rune in common with the deity at 60% or better, they may offer False Worship of the deity (*).

This consists of attending worship service on an appropriate Holy Day, and performing a normal-seeming POW-sacrifice, thus gaining one of the specific Rune-Spells of the Cult.  However, this acts as a One-Use spell, with a temporary "Rune Pool".  Upon casting the spell, it is permanently-gone, as is(are) the Rune Point(s) used to cast it; but in fact, that Rune Point was never really "sacrificed" and regenerates in a day, as if it were a Magic-Point!

Once the pseudo "Rune Pool" is empty & all POW is back with the Lanbrili (a day later), the cult's Spirits of Retribution will not see such a Lanbrili as a heretic or apostate to be punished.  The Lanbrili shows no sign of any link or association with the cult, whatsoever; they are an "innocent bystander."

While in possession of the spell, with a Rune-Pool gained by False Worship, the spell acts in all ways as a regular Rune Spell & Rune-Pool for the Cult.  It may be cast as usual, Spell-Traded with Issaries, placed into a spell-matrix (n.b. this is an exception to the "one-use" nature of the stolen spell), etc etc etc.

If the Lanbrili has "fenced" the Rune-Spell to an Issaries, they regenerate the POW (just as if they had cast the spell) and (if their Rune Pool has dropped to zero) are then severed from that cult; but the Issaries still has the spell available to cast or trade again.



(*) there are rumors [by which I mean, I'm considering the mechanics for] some Lanbrili knowing a "Falsify Rune" method, whereby they appear (to all metaphysical tests, Second Sight, etc) to possess a rune that they do not possess.  This may be as simple as a set of spells, "Falsify Air," "Falsify Harmony," etc.  This would let a Lanbrili steal Rune Magic without even having one Rune in-common with the deity!!!

I like it but it may be too powerful. Like why bother being a Thanatari if you can just join Lanbril and steal similar power with far less risk?

Lanbril stole magic in god time. I think each act of theft should be a dangerous separate heroquest, so if you manage to steal Orlanth’s chariot, you get teleport - but good luck sneaking up on Orlanth!

How Lanbril stole death might be an interesting one - find someone who is hero questing somewhere on the trickster stole death then passed it around cycle and steal death from them. Death is separation, such as separation of people from their belongings, or separation of people's abilities and powers from their person, so a Lanbril thief in possession of a piece of death would be terrifyingly capable - maybe even able to steal heroic abilities, as Lanbril stole  magic from the gods in godtime. 

Kallyr returns in the Battle of Moonfall? She’s listed as one of the heroes sent to support Argrath?

I think there’s a strong hint in Orlanth is Dead that things magically return to normal after the battle of Iceland - at least for people who didn’t defect to the seven mothers.

So cattle turn out to be fine, and lots of people who everyone thought were dead turn out to be alive?

57 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

Eff and I left another Gloranthan discussion group when the moderator decided normalising eliminationist rhetoric on Holocaust Memorial Day was absolutely fine and nothing for anybody to get upset about.

I don't like the way some people push their own weird fantasies of justified genocide ("but it's authentically Bronze Age!") into Glorantha, and I dearly wish they would stop, but you simply can't reason with fanatics.

In the fantasy which is Glorantha, Argrath turned away from genocide. 

Quote - King of Sartar

 

... The empire, in response, summoned the Seven Granddaughters of the Red Moon, The Twin Fire Demons, the Vampire Legion of Karn, the Stonewall Soldiers, the Fingers of the Goddess, the Jailers of the Dandarath, the Blue Wizards, the Blue Serpent, and the Moon Wind. But, as was his way, Argrath did not do what everyone expected him to do. He did not wish to hazard the lives of all the best beings of body and spirit against the gods of entropy, as if this was another Battle of Doom.

Instead, Argrath called upon all the powers of his left hand, which he had used only once. With whoever would help him from each direction he did the Dragon Move, and in that way called into his presence Sh’harkazeel, which was promised freedom in return for its honest and true assistance. ...

 

Arkat tried genocide and it didn't work. Argrath tried something else, and was much more successful at ending the chaos threat, or at least deferring it into the impossibly distant future. 

Glorantha is full of uncomfortable topics, it has always been a playground for philosophy and ideas, where consequences can be explored without the risk of people actually being injured or killed. I'd rather explain to someone why they are wrong, than silence them for advancing an idea I don't like.

On 6/8/2023 at 6:42 AM, Manunancy said:

Did he really plan on bringing Sheng, or was it more 'let's dive into the worst lynar hells to find something they really fear and drag it out to trhow it in their faces'  - and teh 'something' happens to eb good old Sheng ?

Sheng was deliberate. Argarath shook the universe when he demanded Sheng in the Halls of Justice, and the gods of truth could not honour their promise

16 hours ago, Eff said:

I think the fundamental problem with playing with Lunars as anything more than "defectors from decadence" who see the error of their ways eventually is that it's intrinsically political- the Lunar world is one where politics is immanent and ever-present, and the pretense of playing apolitical "barbarians"/heroic Greeks cannot be maintained. I say problem, but really it's just as much a fundamental potential, so long as you remember to take all the nonsense about how the Lunars/the scientific revolution are simultaneously a threat to the cosmos and poor and feeble, looking with jealousy upon mighty Sartar and place it in the appropriate receptacle. 

Wouldn't Lunars who saw error be more likely to try to correct the error?

I mean, look at all the good the Lunars have done - tamed the barbarians, stopped the worst ravages of winter, even tamed chaos, by providing a path for beings touched by the primal forces of creation to set aside their destructive natures and live as productive members of society.

Let's not forget, the Lunar Way is the only path which offers hope of creating a better world. The alternative path, championed by the barbarians, would deliver us a world of barbarism and suffering without end, without hope that the suffering might one day be alleviated through the healing touch of the goddess.

If some occluded sometimes appear to drag the empire into directions many might consider selfish or corrupt, surely that risk is a small price to pay for following a path which offers the possibility of salvation, of making the world a better place.

What more noble purpose could there be, than honouring those who risked everything to bring the goddess into our lives, by dedicating every fibre of our being to the fulfilment of their great vision?

One thing which strikes me, the dragonrise seems oddly reminiscent of the dragon kill war, where a concentration of magic and people in one place with draconic connections aroused a feeding frenzy. 

Perhaps the reason critics of the Dragonrise got so upset is it could have been much worse. Maybe it was just luck that the magical event was restricted to one dragon and one group of magically charged Lunars.