EricW

I wish there was more material on the progression of the empire into the heaving chaotic horror of the monster empire. I get the sense chaos taints amongst Lunars were unusual up until the dragon rise? Like they were happy to use battlefield chaos magic, but left actual direct contact with chaos to the specialists. But if the Lunars followed the progression of the 1st age illuminates when they found themselves losing to Arkat, at some point Lunars would have started being less fussy about who or what supplied the power they craved to win battles. At some point perhaps ordinary soldiers and commanders started increasingly partaking personally of the strengthening corruption?

If anything INT should be a penalty on SAN rolls. Intelligence does not equal sanity. Smart people have more chance of grasping the full implications of what they see.

What about using luck to influence the form of insanity? You could use luck to pick one of the insanities which allow them to function, kindof, like a mania for magic. Of course the downside is if they appear too functional, their fellow party members might not notice they are now in many respects a danger to the party.

Kirlian photography might be fun to work into a scenario. A lot of people think Kirlian is actually photographing auras, so obvious applications for mythos scenarios

Beware the dark path of the pen… 🙂

Spiritualism is a persistent belief system. My theory is it's based of variations of subvocalisation function. People's brains work in many different ways, a lot of people hear and converse with voices, which they sometimes call spirit. These are not crazy people, crazy is when you start doing horrible things the voices tell you to do, they're just a part of the diverse range of normal brain function. The reality is we talk to ourselves all the time - so the voices are real, it's an important part of cognition. There are ongoing attempts to capture this subvocal voice, with obvious implications ranging from curing mental illnesses to new interrogation techniques. Even if a prisoner resists regular interrogation, they might be talking to themself about the secret they are trying to conceal - in many cases it might be what we consider our own thoughts which are being subvocalised. Obviously if there is any human interaction with the supernatural, this self chatter might be a place to start looking. And I have looked - though I've never seen any evidence of additional knowledge, which would be a strong indication something strange was happening. Like if the voices in someone's head consistently leading them to buried treasure or murder victims or whatever, it would be pretty intriguing evidence something unusual was happening. But every indication I've seen to date is while some people believe they are talking to supernatural realms, whatever is happening doesn't give them any advantage in terms of knowledge or insight, beyond what you could reasonably expect an intelligent person to discover based on information they already have. Probably a good thing - if Cthulhu existed, I'm not sure having access to the supernatural and magic would be worth the downside 😉

I can’t help thinking the trickster bond is a bit heavy handed. Tricksters should be subject to the lightbringer summons, but that’s limited duration?

Product of a first age chaos god? 😉

Eurmal is the personification of wasted potential - the bright kid with no impulse control, who never studies, skips school, plays funny and cruel pranks with equal abandon, and the only reason you don't kill him on sight is he once helped save everyone - though critics might point out in a very real sense, he was also the cause of the prank which almost destroyed the universe. I suggest be very careful with Eurmal, otherwise he can be brutally power gamed. People who start trying to use Eurmal magic in an organised way should be punished severely, their god will start intervening and sending strange encounters to mess with them. In any case, Eurmal worshippers should rapidly accumulate a long list of enemies, which in itself will crimp their plans, because a lot of them will be so annoyed they'll come after the trickster. Before you say the word "compromise", remember Eurmal breaks the rules. It's happened before, like in the second age when Eurmal almost wrecked the compromise when he decided to teach men to speak to dragons, probably because it seemed a good idea at the time. Like imagine if there's a meeting, and Eurmal decides to help bring agreement by casting Eurmal's Harmony. Eurmal's Harmony - causes everyone in a group to talk over each other, then leave believing everyone else agreed completely with everything they proposed. What is the fallout when that goes wrong? After the tribes finish killing each other, and pause long enough to divine who is the author of their misery, that trickster better be a long way away! And the warring factions will find common ground and harmony, they'll all agree killing the trickster who caused all that loss and bloodshed is their highest priority. PCs and NPCs surely don't have to dress as clowns - I mean, some might, but if you dress as a clown its like wearing a "kick me" sign, people will just attack you on sight. Pranks are more fun if they are a surprise. So liars, swindlers, womanisers, but like if they pull off the ultimate merchant cash box heist, they've lost it all by the next morning, just like Eurmal lost death on multiple occasions "I'm sure I put it somewhere, oh dang, that scary troll has it! DUCK!"

I think its pretty near impossible to make such determinations, because an otherworld magical victory could tip the balance at any moment during a conflict. For example, the Lunars managed to temporarily kill Orlanth, which devastated the magical capabilities of the Orlanthi rebels, until Orlanth was liberated. Later the rebels somehow caused the dragon rise, and broke the hold of the Lunar occupiers - does this mean the rebels were more powerful than the empire? I mean they eventually defeat the empire? Later still in the hero wars, Argrath resurrected Sheng Solaris, who killed and ate the Red Emperor, but in the process dealt a devastating magical injury to the forces of the Goddess. Does this mean Argrath and his army was stronger than the empire? Even apparently obvious comparisons, like the the might of the Empire vs Dorastor. Consider what would have happened if the empire attempted to march into Dorastor and occupy it. Dorastor in the second age was so dangerous EWF adventurers who went to investigate were never heard from again, or returned as undead or chaos monsters. Ralzakark somehow restrained these horrors. But who knows what magical alliances and deals he made, and what horrible forces Ralzakark could call on if facing an existential challenge. It's likely Ralzakark knows God learner secrets extracted from those who resurrected him, and has access to magical myth mangling skills only matched by Argrath after his quest to talk to the dead god learners. The empire might eventually prevail in a conflict between Ralzakark and the emperor - but at what cost? And could we be certain of the outcome? Or let's take another comparison, the empire vs Brithos - Zabur vs the magical might of the empire. Who would win that contest? Pretty impressive being the kind of sorcerer who can close off the seas of the entire world.

The block of Truestone holding Wakboth only just holds him. His minions continue to fight Storm Bull’s armies in the Eternal Battle, a contest so close to the mundane world it can easily be visited. And the devil has repeatedly demonstrated his power to intrude into the world, such as his final conflict with Argrath and the death of the gods, which occurs after or as the moon is being torn from the sky. The point is the devil is magically close to Prax. it would be a near certainty that an attempt to resurrect a major god in Prax would attract the devil and his minions, who would attempt to pervert the ritual. And there is a solid mythical foundation for that perversion, instead of the ritual stopping with the resurrection of Genert, the traitors could attempt to push the ritual forward to the battle of Earthfall, when chaos gods murdered Genert and dissolved his armies in a display of forces never before seen. Such a major eruption of chaos would be extremely dangerous so close to the block.

I was referring to Wakboth. Casting a divinity scale resurrection spell in Prax has its potential pitfalls.

Isn't the eternal battle still being fought way too close for comfort to the mundane world in Prax - the spirit armies of Storm Bull still fight the followers of Wakboth, to keep his power contained? If you sacrifice a thousand people in a gigantic and rather morally dubious resurrection spell, and open a gate to the otherworld big enough for a god to step through, it might not be Genert you resurrect.

Clanking City Mechamagic will be the go in our world, as soon as ChatGPT finishes designing it. Obviously the cheap version you'll have to wait for the Google video advertisement to finish playing before you can use your mechanically augmented strength to punch someone out in a bar fight.

I wonder which trickster convinced them they were a tailor?

A visit to the green age, where now dead gods like Genert walk untroubled, spreading their bounty and giving their gifts freely, where the people never age, where the authority of Yelm is absolute, where the Spike is the center of the world. What gifts can be retrieved? What dangers lurk in a place where death is still a secret under the watchful guard of Vivamort, where Malia is a healing goddess?

I think you could have a lot of fun with this. There are cases in stories where someone averts their gaze or lose consciousness and avoid SAN loss - I mean, you can't lose SAN loss from seeing Deep Ones in the distance if you are blind. But if they come up for a cuddle, I'd maybe charge double SAN loss, being touched by something horrible and alien, feeling trapped and helpless - how traumatic would that be? And after a while, when the disadvantages become too much, you could offer the PC an opportunity to learn some mythos sight spell, say a tablet written in an ancient dialect of brail. Then san loss for everyone - a person without eyes who can see, and the PC themselves having their perceptions widened maybe a little too much, like X-ray vision, or limited perception of other realms. And don't forget when it comes to mythos, if you can see them, they can generally see you.

There's definitely a case for benign defensive use of mythos magic, like the Arkham professors who used magic gleaned from their texts to dispel The Dunwich Horror. But someone who reaches out to the mythos, who initiatives the contact, it should always be a two way street ;-). "... happy is the tomb where no wizard hath lain, and happy the town at night whose wizards are all ashes. ..." - The Necronomicon (The Festival by H P Lovecraft)

I think be merciless. Nobody should use magic like that - san loss every step of the process, horrible nightmares, risk of attracting the attention of beings from beyond or other wizards who want to "help", distant discordant piping music at night, mythos skill gain, paranoia about other party members, the world looks strange, everything seems hollow and insubstantial, like if you look at it the wrong way you would see something very different to everyday perception, other party members wondering if their "friend" has gotten a bit close to their enemies. And the knowledge, horrible knowledge, of what shamblers actually do to people - a fate worse than death. And the realisation - there is no such thing as a locked door, in a universe where things can pass between dimensions as easily as a human crosses a road. Is that a shambler hiding in the corner, in a wardrobe, or under the bed? But there might be a solution, a dimly remembered reference on page 547 of the Necronomicon, of a vile blood ritual which can create a talisman which offers some protection against the "visitors". All the player needs to decide is who to sacrifice.

If the block was removed, Wakboth would likely destroy the world. Argrath faced the Devil but could even he have faced Wakboth in his totality, completely liberated from the Block?

The Shield of Time and other time patrol books by Poul Anderson. Beautiful descriptions of historical settings and a surprisingly Gloranthan feel considering it’s a time travel book. If you consider the distant future god like Danielans, who set up the time patrol, intervening to protect history as soon as time travel was invented, and journeys into the past as heroquests into myth which affect the present, then you will see why I say this. And of course, the stories have several cases where the future is overthrown by criminals, or one disturbing case where the future just collapsed by itself, and had to be reconstructed.

The alternative was rule by Wakboth, slavery as the plaything of brutal chaos fiends, until the final dissolution of the world. The world was already falling apart, a process which accelerated under the monster empire. Chaotic magic was causing manifestations like the shadow's good shadow; The "... fabric of the world coming unwoven ..." doesn't sound like a good alternative to Argrath pulling down the moon and ending the reign of horror.

The Telmori betrayed Sartar and sided with the Lunars from memory, and have a long history of siding with chaotic assaults on the Orlanth (eg siding with Nysalor in the First Age). And they do have chaotic shape shifters in their ranks, who involuntarily change on wild day, so strictly speaking wiping them out could be viewed as an Orlanthi cult obligation.

Yep - Eurmal the peacemaker :-). Isn’t there also a bab geas always kill seducer? Tells us all we need to know about the next morning 🙂

Someone who successfully escaped Arkat's Dorastan genocide is probably pretty difficult to kill permanently.