Akhôrahil

Agree. I think the trick about giant-killing isn’t to make giants really easy to kill, but to make giant-killers really good at their job. Where’s the heroism if it’s easy?

Wait, there's still a separate Sartar Book apart from this?!

My players took down Zeeth the Chaos Whale fair and square with no casualties (although one only survived because he had something like 40 HPs at the time - do not underestimate what berserking does for your HPs). Critting and cutting off the tail in one stroke was pretty spectacular! It really needed those 26 points of armor to stay in the fight for several rounds, though.

It will be super interesting to see if the heroquesting rules handle this. Fighting a Giant in the real world should be a lot about the physics and really tough, while Giant-killing in an HQ might be about other things, like your Hate Giants passion.

This is all true, but it would require a substantial system overhaul (one I believe is called for, but also non-trivial to design well). A lot of RPGs are bad at representing size and power properly, and RQ is certainly included. My suggestion is an easy emergency patch, not a proper solution. This isn’t even just about huge opponents - your switchblade mentioned isn’t going to be all that good at parrying a maul, either. My rules-intuition here is that you should start tracking wrapon sizes and penalize using weapons that aren’t big enough for the job. Doesn’t Mythras do this? And plus, you could make weapon reach important in the same solution, the way it isn’t now. Maybe even rescue shields from their current awful state?

Like I mentioned above, limiting the reduction to half of the printed skill helps a lot (extensively tested in my campaign). A massive creature with 5% to hit is negligible, but one with 25% is still scary. This also applies to Impede Chaos, which otherwise gets downright crazy when you dump 5+ Rune Points into it. You’d think Berserk is the signature Storm Bull magic, but even with this nerf, Impede Chaos gets seen a lot more often in play. (That said, you haven’t seen a Berserker until you’ve seen someone fully Bear-transformed, berserking, Impede:d and buffed to the gills by the other PCs. That’s a force of nature, for the day when spending 25+ Rune Points seems called for.)

Is this a book or box?

"Abilities above 100%", p. 144 in teh Core rules. The routine way of obliterating large but only moderately skillful opponents in RQG is pushing your skill way above 100% and dumping the opponent down to a 5% chance of success. This really is far too easy, and tends to trivialize opponents like giants, large animals, and dinosaurs. This applies to any opposed roll - see the example of Move Silently vs. Search on the same page, for instance.

The Lunar Empire, as one book or two (provinces + heartlands), at least once the Argrath Campaign moves north.

Skill tanking is ridiculous. My house rule is that reductions like Impede Chaos or high skill can at maximum halve the unmodified combat skill. This works alright, and doesn’t completely trivialize giants and dinosaurs. But yeah, by the printed rules, a PC-sized group of moderately experienced Humakti will take down Cwim hard, something the game doesn’t really intend.

Arachne Solara, The Red Goddess and Krarsht make up the trinity of the Great Goddess as creator, preserver and destroyer. Milk.

Dinosaurs, Giants and several Chaos monsters simply eat people (or worse, your herds!). That's a solid rationale for either simply being attacked by them, or having to go out and kill them or drive them off for a reward. Adventuring 101.

Big monsters are nowhere near as dangerous aesthetics should be, agree. They go down very easy and their attacks are usually easily negated through deductions. A nine meter giant should be a terrifying opponent, but is actually kinda meh, something a reasonably experienced fighty adventurer should be able to solo. (Elementals are the worst, though. 10 cubic meters of elemental ought to be a horrific opponent, but they go down as soon as you poke them.)

Also, whatever the heck Ralzakark is.

Agree with this - Illumination has to be less achievable than, say, a bachelor's degree. Also, I wonder just how much the Lunar rulers are in favor of widespread Illumination among the populace. It's great within the religious and political power structures, but do you really want large swathes of the general population to learn that they're free to disobey whatever rules they don't agree with? We know that unchecked Illumination practices lead to all kinds of troubles. Surely it's better to keep a lid on things?

It seems you will have to do this on your own, but I think it makes a lot of sense. Even if Buserian = Lhankor Mhy, that doesn't mean that The Cult of Lhankor Mhy = The Cult of Buserian - there can be all kinds of differences in worship, mythology, theology, magical access, and so on. In the ancient world, maybe you decide that Jupiter Optimus Maximus, Zeus Lykaios, Zeus-Ammon and Hadad are all actually ultimately the same transcendent entity. But it seems odd to me to think that you only have to write up a single cult that covers all of them - these cults are very different in practice. "The Cult of Orlanth" is as though we had a "Cult of *Dyḗus ph₂tḗr". Maybe it's useful as a rules construct, but...

Lodril gives in to it all the way and does fine!

I think the idea is that you can regain your rune points away from the temple by using Associated Cult Worship.

Regular Air Elementals are kinda stupid, but smarter spirits, Allied Spirits, Awakened birds and so in make excellent couriers.

Lack of Sanctify makes sense to me when the cult is particularly tied to a location. Bloody Tusk, Crimson Bat, many spirit cults… you’re not supposed to be able to worship them anywhere.

It’s the same idea with sacred ground in general - it’s sacred to a cult or deity, not just all-around sacred. If you want to be nice to the player (and it fits), the “Site” level of sacred ground might be found about (although for a lesser cult, this would reasonably be less common as well - the Spirit of the Great Split Rock can probably only be worshiped at that place and nowhere else.)

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I think it makes sense to widen the utility aspect of the regular spirit magic. Sure, the described function of Bladesharp is a two-minute combat bonus, but I very much think it's also something you use to sharpen your kitchen knives.

Sagittus but not Hastatus seems a little odd? Unless Hastatus = Avivorus?

Also, the more oddball, corner-case, personal and non-combat a new spirit magic spell is, the stronger the reason why it isn't already widespread.