EricW

4 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Of course the Bat might do a number on the insides of said Trickster.  Might be like the vacuum monster in the Yellow Submarine when he sucks up the entire landscape and then itself.  You end up in Nowhere Land.  But that's somewhere - and getting back from there ought to be interesting.

When the Trickster swallowed the PC's in my game to help them escape from a Lunar encampment where they were prisoners, they ended up in one of the borderlands of Hell and had to escape through the Fog of Illusion.

 

Mythologically Trickster is good at swallowing chaos or anything else which annoys him. Of course, there would be consequences. The trickster would jump to the top of the most wanted list, loads of people would want to join trickster, and even the Orlanthi would be worried - I mean, even if you were a light bringer, would you really want a trickster who can swallow a small town anywhere near your place of residence?

On 2/1/2023 at 10:17 AM, jajagappa said:

In my opinion, if it was that simple to gain control of the Crimson Bat, a monstrous demon of Chaos, then it doesn't pass my fantasy credibility test (one of the reasons I like RQ/Glorantha and not D&D). 

That said, we know it can be done.  Broyan and his heroic companions did so at the Battle of Whitewall.  But by the "historical record" (YGMV) it wasn't achieved in 1602 nor in the Dorastor setting with Hahlgrim and Paulus.  

So, if you go back to the Crimson Bat's description in Cults of Terror, we can look at some features of the Bat itself that makes this challenging:

Item 8: The Bat will absorb all the battle magic cast or in effect within the Glowspot. Priests and Rune Lords of the Bat will be unaffected.  (Sorcery wasn't around back in RQ2, but would not surprise me if that was the case.)

Item 10: The Bat absorbs all magic, battle or Rune, cast at it.  (And I'm sure sorcery would fall within this.  Of course, you're thinking of targeting the high priest, not the bat, but between this and the item above, the Crimson Bat largely negates magic in its vicinity.)

Item 9: All discorporate or unbound spirits (except fetches) which come within the Glowspot will be absorbed instantly by the Bat.  (Possession by a friendly ancestor won't work - it has to discorporate to try to possess and in the process it's absorbed.)

Item 4: The Bat never can be surprised. (One might conclude that it anticipates your attack, so it attacks you either one of its tongues, or its eye spit, or simply its chaotic keening.)

As for the Rune Priests, they know Absorption, so would naturally use that to absorb your magic if they are in a fight with you.  They can cast Bat Wings, so they can fly away or around or above you.  And they can sacrifice for Mindblast to disable you. 

What you will need:  Rune Magic or Heroic abilities.  Probably that can be cast upon yourself.  Get on the bat's back (where hopefully the eye spit and tongues won't reach you, though the giant ticks will) and hopefully have a chance to kill the Rune Priests (if they're using Absorption, they probably can't use Shield at the same time).  

Doable - a 400pt +/- Trickster Swallow spell, enough for the bat, the fleas and the riders. The rune magic spell is cast on the trickster, so it doesn't get absorbed. The trickster probably has some substantial bonuses to hit something as big as the bat. And when swallowed, the bat passes out of the mortal world into whatever strange realm things swallowed by the trickster end up - difficult for even the Lunars to reach.

Now all the Trickster needs is to figure out how to get the power to sacrifice for such an enormous swallow spell.

Given trolls left the underworld after Orlanth killed Yelm, and all dead things (including trolls?) end up in the underworld, surely there are well trodden paths dead trolls could take which would return them to the surface world? Why isn't this a regular occurrence? After all, the surface world has lots of yummy food, and I'm guessing even dead trolls get hungry?

12 hours ago, radmonger said:

Certainly if you don't get the rune, then knowing rune magic that uses that rune is pretty pointless.

There is a caveat here, that correctly being draconic is a big complicated mystical thing that isn't a matter of merely having a rune. The caveat to the caveat is that humans who want to fly, breath fire and have diamond skin are not always capturing that subtlety. 

The dragonewt rune, at some level, is clearly a mistake. The historical question s whether it was a mistake made by the Empire of Wyrm's Friends itself, or a mistake made by the god learners in understanding the EWF.

 

KOS suggests draconic consciousness comes before knowledge or magic. 

King of Sartar - The Dragon Wars

 

... One day Eurmal found a new way to betray his master. He found a foolish man, and he split his tongue, the way that a bird’s tongue can be split to make it talk. And he also split the man’s brain, and his heart. That way the man would understand dragon speech.

The man, who is called Rostand the Speaker, enjoyed the effect. The dragonewts, which were always something to fear, spoke to him and he understood. He found his way to a dragon, and rather than being eaten, he learned a song from it! ...

 

So unless something changed (maybe?), all you need to do is convince Eurmal to "split your tongue, brain and heart", and you'll become draconic. You can then approach dragons and have a chance of not being eaten. 

On 8/15/2017 at 6:24 PM, metcalph said:

According to HeroQuest: Glorantha p203, Illumination is known in Jrustela.  I presume that the result of being exposed to forbidden God Learner secrets.  As for whether the God Learners were mystical, the description of them as the "Most Learned but Least Wise" remains the best summary to date.

The God Learners plundered the dark empire, at least some of them must have become illuminates.

What I don’t understand is why wasn’t Thanatar a significant force amongst the God Learners? Consume mind seems a quick path to mastering all sorts of foreign skills and magics.

The first paragraph of "Call of Cthulhu" reads :- 

The first paragraph of "The Call of Cthulhu"

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

I'm guessing in the Cthulhu universe, an AI, with its superior ability to correlate and extract meaning from vast amounts of information, brings us a big step closer to that dread day of revelation ;-). 

On 1/6/2023 at 3:00 AM, David Scott said:

While Yelm is not a Moon cult, the Red Goddess is a sky cult. The Red Goddess is an associate cult of Yelm, as she's his daughter. Illuminated Sun Lords and Priests may become initiates of the Red Goddess cult. Rulers must join the Red Goddess cult as a prerequisite of joining the Yelm Imperator subcult. Likewise as an associate cult, Red Goddess initiates can join Yelm the Priest. 

What is Yelm's attitude to chaos? Is it possible for a daughter to still be an associate cult, even though she is chaotic? 

I don't think you have to look far. I know of at least two isolated communities, separate groups in my local region who are following someone they believe is the second coming of Christ. There are strange rumblings in the sea, leading to the occasional minor Earthquake, aboriginals practicing their ancient magic, private airstrips, swamps, boats calling by on the way to who knows where, and the occasional disappearance at sea attributed to a deadly jellyfish. 

Just as well Cthulhu is fiction, right?

5 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

the authors of that are Young Earth creationists whose and not actual archaeologists and admitted to manipulating the photographs. They wished to identify the site as Sodom. Their "dig" was by an uncredited Evangelical Christian diploma mill, Trinity Southwest.

But you can still have Lovecraftian horror happen!

Thanks for setting me straight Qizilbashwoman.

There is evidence of a Tunguska scale impact event in 1650BCE in the Fertile Crescent, which may have devastated the city of Tall el-Hammam in the late Bronze Age. An interesting event to incorporate into any regional Cthulhu narratives. 

Maybe Leonardo’s lab is on the hero plane. People drop in and chat to him, leave useful ideas from all ages.

The liberator who succeeds will also be Argrath, just a different Argrath 😉

The summoning of evil is an obvious heroquest which draws in opponents regardless of their willingness.

There is a beautiful example in “Orlanth is dead”. The moment the summons is complete, the Lunar army commander loses contact with command - but rashly decides to push on anyway, because the summons made his presence at the battle inevitable.

27 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Precedence might be available - the uz have heroquested to the moments of broken Compromise in the Battle of Night and Day to negate the Curse of Kin. Their own summoning of the Black Eater at that time was into a break of the Compromise.

Similarly, Renvald Meldekbane called in Orlanth to deal with Zistor after the revelation of Zistor as a deity within Time had broken the Compromise, which means that that last episode of the Machine War may be accessible to heroquesters. But: to what end? There is a consensus that getting rid of Zistor was a good outcome. Why mess with that outcome?

There are all sorts of potential reasons for making such a dangerous journey. For example, maybe they are there to rescue a critically important artefact stolen by the god learners, like a stolen wind sword which everyone believed was lost in the final machine city cataclysm. 

Thanks for the precedent. 

Maybe there is a "Genesis of the Daleks" style heroquest waiting to be discovered? Obviously the Clanking City might not be entirely welcoming towards visitors who emerge out of the heroplane inside their city, given the magical attacks they were fending off towards the end? 

Perhaps they died out in the gods war. Bringing them back could be an oddly disruptive heroquest, a whole lot of other things might also return, like elves with fire magic, who tend flammable Eucalypt forests which thrive in dry lands like Prax. Perhaps this is the missing link which leads to restoring Genert’s Garden.

I've always wondered, why are the Lunars so intent on destroying Orlanth? Why not follow Lokaymayadon's footsteps and try to subjugate Orlanth? Surely Tarsh would be the place to attempt such an experiment?

Maybe there is a case for using POW as CHA when Tusk Riders are interacting with other riders? Or Broo interacting with other Broo? A leader has to have charisma in some form, even if the only beings which appreciate it are their fellow horde.

On 12/6/2022 at 7:04 AM, Eff said:

What exactly is the point of all this when you could just tell a player "No you didn't" whenever they attempt to use the Lie spell, and then if or when they object, informing the players that sudden blowdarts from undetectable Lunar super ninjas have killed them all with ultra poison? The end result is the same, and it's much quicker, gets the point across easier, and the only reason I could think of to go through this whole process of "you thought you could use this option that exists within the rules to affect this situation? Think again!" would be sadistic intent against the players. 

Sure, have some mercy. Like if the Lunars are so incensed they're waiting just inside the gate to kill any barbarian who vaguely fits the description, the party could meet someone who somehow escaped the kill squad who could warn them.

I doubt the Lunars would do anything like this, unless they were truly desperate, if the PCs became so powerful they were starting to threaten the Lunar occupation. Otherwise, the Lunar authorities would be complacently confident that sooner or later the bounty hunters will find the rebel scum, so no sense getting all emotional about it. If the PC party does something especially outrageous, just increase the bounty, and increase the scariness of the Lunar bounty hunters. The PCs will quickly discover they shouldn't stay in one spot too long, which makes it easier to ease them into new adventures. 

4 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Sure, I didn’t mean to question that. But if you are our hypothetical Lunar copper, you are drilled not to let them go just because they didn’t do it. And if you believe against all your instincts about civilians that they really didn’t do it, then you kill them out of hand (because they are annoying or just because it is a paranoid’s reflex in a land of liars) — and then you go looking for the people you were really after … only you don’t find them, because you have already “eliminated them from your enquiries” and all their tomorrows.

But, of course, the exchange doesn’t really go like this:

• “You! Yes, you, scumbag. A word, please.”
• “I am not the assassin you are looking for.”

The lie may be believed, but immediate cognitive dissonance — it is not as if the copper doesn’t have a memory of being told this extraordinary thing. Whereas the stormtrooper stopping Ben and company likely parrots the words put into their head without a clear idea of what Ben has said or even that he has spoken.

Maybe more likely:

• “You look shifty. And strangely familiar. Where were you last night, turd?”
• “I cannot tell a lie, officer — much as I would like to — I was banged up in the cells for drunkenly pissing in a copper’s helmet. Perhaps I was taken to your station.”

Then cringe like the copper is going to hit you; like you think maybe it was their helmet. But if you were in the cells, you weren’t playing stabby-stabby with the governor’s back (or whatever the crime was). You have to sidle up to the thing and tell a lie that might well have been true and which doesn’t hang a giant, dayglo “innocent but” sign around your neck. Yes, you did something, but you have already been caught and punished, but still have reason to want to go unnoticed, and that is why you look shifty. You don’t want to stand out like a fluorescent rhino in a disco — even if everyone is convinced that you are a rhino that absolutely, definitely didn’t assassinate anyone. I mean, especially not that.

Whereas, when playing the “no sunrise tomorrow” practical joke on your friends, it doesn’t matter that their neurons are jangling with the wrongness of it — if they believe it, they will run around like headless chickens, anyway. Something like that might work for a street stop — “Oh, my goddess, that Lunar patrol, they are all on fire; they will surely die if not doused with much water immediately” screamed at the top of one’s lungs so that the patrol and all on the street hear it. Chaos ensues, and you run like hell. Short term, it works, but you have called attention to yourself, so make sure you get out of town double quick.

Even more hilarious if the copper arrests everyone who looks suspicious in rebel infested areas. Because everyone does look suspicious. They’re all barbarians.

Or if a patrol includes a psycho - “let’s kill them anyway”.

How many times have you looked and not been sure they are someone you know or have heard of? It’s this fringe of doubt the lie would act on.

I’m sure Lunars could work out a system, like putting deaf people in charge who can’t hear the lie, putting stupid people in charge who don’t understand the lie, a series of interlocking lookouts who can rush out and persuade soldiers at checkpoints they’ve been lied to. Or Yansfil cultists maintaining continuous “detect honour” spells at all checkpoints.

All hilariously consequential - especially in the trickster has multiple uses of “lie”.

11 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

But it is a spell to mislead on matters of fact, right? Not a command spell or a confuse spell (unlike Ben’s “jedi mind trick”). Although the spell description says “incontrovertible evidence” of falsehood is needed, it also suggests that a Yelm priest’s divination as to whether the sun is going to rise tomorrow will do when the trickster says it won’t — it is not as if Yelm knows when he is going to be murdered; if he did, he would be madder than he already is (which is madder than a crate of salamanders) — so the bar is set pretty low.

So if serious criminals use lie a lot, we can expect policing to get a lot more Draconian and tricksters to get even less popular. “You are a copper. You think everyone is guilty. If someone tells you they are innocent and you believe them, execute them on the spot, as they are making you look soft. That is an order. Is that clear?”

Lie is good, but its overuse may have undesirable consequences.

What happens when trickster A tells person C that p and trickster B tells person C that ¬p? In the absence of evidence either way, what does C believe?

Surely the identity and criminal status of a group of PCs a perception of "fact" which can be manipulated by a lie spell. "We are not the people you are looking for" - its a lie, a mistruth about a fact. Of course, if this is abused enough Lunars might develop elaborate strategies for trying to protect themselves, like ensuring the leader of the patrol is deaf - which could lead to even more hilarity - "write more slowly, I can't read when you scribble too fast".

The natural limit on this manipulation is local tolerance for tricksters running around with lie spell. Tricksters wouldn't only use lies for escaping justice, they'd heavily abuse this power for pretty much anything you could imagine. When you think about it from that perspective, its pretty obvious why the Trickster Great Temple in Slontos sank beneath the waves, it sank under the weight of all the lies. 

Just now, mfbrandi said:

The point of the spell is to pass off the ludicrous as true, but you are right that it would work for a quick stop by a street patrol. Serious law enforcement would split the party and assign multiple interrogators. If the trickster used lie in that circumstance, one suspects they would soon be spotted … and summarily executed for wasting police time.

Or the liar could say “we are not the people you are looking for” before they are arrested and separated.

17 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Let's see if I got this correct, you are saying pitchmen (well salespeople to be accurate) are chaos-ridden slime? Hm...

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

Chaos ridden slime?  How dare you refer to the Lunar Tax Demons in such a denigrating way, you barbarian?  Audit time!😈

At the weekend club BBQ the German chef complained that nobody was buying his potato salad. So I got a big red marker pen, circled the salad on the menu board, and wrote "try this" with the red pen.

The potato salad sold out in an hour. 

Clearly it was the use of the demonic red pen... 🙂

I sure hope the party includes a trickster. That phenomenal lie spell could be used to convince hostiles they made a mistake. Lunars would face the absurdity of following them everywhere and not catching them.

”These aren’t the droids you’re looking for”

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

This is just a failure of marketing.  It just requires the right salesman with the right pitch to sell the idea to the right person.

It’s actually a form of immortality. The owner of the head hierarchy promises to consult all heads before making decisions which affect the group. Meanwhile you can socialise and enjoy the amenities, while being part of a unique, vibrant, active community which caters for your needs, and respects your individuality and contribution.