Akhôrahil

It looks a bit like propitiatory Malia worship, but that's something that can work when you're out of options. For a value of "work".

I don’t quite like that last part - it’s a good thing (narratively) that the tattooing is an ordeal. My preferred interpretation is that magical tattoos (outside of one’s that are picked up magically as well, like initiation tattoos) stay pristine on their own, but that they have to be created the normal way. I also like the thought that magical tattoos can change according to events. Banishment from a clan means that your clan markings will start to fade (this assumes that they weren’t already destroyed, Sons of Anarchy style). When you increase a Rune a lot, that tattoo might become brighter, enlarge or even glow.

This might be the only good thing that has ever been done using Jack o' Bears!

This has the additional advantage of letting PCs actually do some important stuff. Argrath is like if king Arthur did everything in the Arthurian legends, rather than enabling the heroics of others.

Sorry, I've got nothing. Virtually everything that happens in the HeroWars seems to be an attack on someone else (hence the "Wars" part) . No, actually I do! The raising of the Boat Planet might not be universally liked, but it's almost certainly a net good (as usual, go Kallyr!).

With the importance of magical tattoos among (among many others) Heortlings, who actually do the tattooing? Presumably, this is something that requires a reasonable amount of expertise, likely Using the Art skill, possibly in conjunction with some other skill (Craft (Tattoo), perhaps - it's unclear whether the Art skill requires that you also know your way around a corresponding craft when it comes to things like working with clay or metal, but my personal interpretation is that you would need to know the Craft to just do things right in the first place, and then use Art to make it aesthetically appealing ). I picture that temples must at the very least have access to someone to do religious tattoos, whether it's an actual official or some guy in the clan who knows how. It's conceivable that this is not a professional, or at least not a full-time position, but in that case, it just increases the number of people who need to know the craft. And how many people would be required in a typical clan? With basically everyone getting a number of large tattoos for all kinds of reasons, and how much longer it takes to make them using pre-industrial techniques, I can't imagine a single person could service an entire clan? Tattoo artist should be a more common job than Charioteer. 🙂 Would anyone who knows more about this want to wager a guess from our known pictures of Heortlings and a time-estimate? It's also possible to imagine wandering experts (or town-based ones), the true professionals who do this full-time and at a higher cost due to their mastery of their craft. Thoughts? It just struck me that I have no idea what would happen if the PCs decide to get a tattoo to mark some event or use it as a spell focus (PCs have a tendency to want tattoos rather than other foci, in my experience).

I find it intriguing how Dragon Pass is published down to up this time, starting with various adventure locations rather than Ye Big Book of Sartar campaign guide.

I just realized how much easier, and in some ways more sensible, this would all be if there was a Discorporation skill that replaced both the spell and the inherent shamanic ability. Shamans and assistans would then both roll this skill, it would be augmented through, for instance, drumming, it would receive bonuses from ritual and drug use, and so on. Others could potentially learn it, but Spirit World travel is not recommended if you don’t have a fetch. (Or you could just rule that the otherwise extremely niche Spirit Dance skill is what does this.)

Same here - nothing says that the standard rule shouldn’t be applied. This may or may not be intentional.

I like how unimpressed Gunda is with Vasana's attitude. She knows she could take her with one hand tied behind her back.

I don’t think it’s railroading either when you say “this problem shows up, how do you deal with it?” nor rolling on the Encounter Tables if they run around in Dorastor. It’s not as though you have to force anything to make the place incredibly unwelcoming.

The good thing is that you can control this as the GM. Yes, the players can explore into Dorastor on their own, but this is likely to turn really unpleasant really fast, and mine at least have shown little indication to go there without an obvious goal in mind. Especially after they saw what happened to an actual team of adventurers who stayed at their stead for a bit before heading in.

Basically, it was all chaos, so Arkat nuked it. Then the chaos came back, only now it was radioactive as well.

There's apparently a module already written, but it's being held off until after an Esrolia/Nochet book (so that you have a published way to get there).

I picked the Risklands when I started my campaign with much the same premisses as you have, for some different reasons: Focused on the stead and a small community, but with room to expand. More freedom from published sources (my Orlanthi are the HW/HQ kind), while still being Orlanthi (also, it's pretty common that you can run Dragon Pass material with only minor adjustments, such as Cattle Raid (GM pack), the Quickstart, or This Fertile Ground (Jonstown Library)). Living at the absolute edge of civilisation, the PCs matter right away without being particularly powerful. Since PCs automatically increase rapidly power, a lot (and I mean a lot) of room for more epic stuff later. Less risk of being overshadowed by NPCs (You Will Never Be As Cool As Argrath). So far, it has gone really well, and to my surprise none of the players wanted to smuggle in a power-gamed character - it was all farmers, herders, hunters, crafter. Get yourself D:LoD, Lords of Terror (actually a lot better than CoT), and @soltakss's Dorastor Jonstown book (in my case, read it, realize it's absolutely not the campaign I'm running, then mine it for ideas rather than use it as printed).

Mmm, took well over 300 years for life to return, so perhaps not so much...

What happened was that it was cursed to be dead. Only much later did it become chaotically fecund. (Although to be fair, he cursed Dokat with broos and stuff.)

Is it Arkat or Dorastor that was covered in chaos features, here? Dorastor was mostly dead ground after Arkat's curse, and I kinda doubt that Arkat himself was mutated? Or?

At this point, you have to wonder if you're playing the right game, though. There seems to be little point of having a heavy, detailed rules system if it's not being used because it can't cover the activities the characters do. Interesting, so they always have a cult to sacrifice to for Rune Points? Horned Man provides this?

I think this is a problem of a kind. A game that's constructed the way RQG is tells you how activities in the world are performed using the rules, such as Discorporation. If you handwave this away and say that the shaman can always bring the apprentice, then the next question becomes "Oh, so shamans can bring other people along? How many? This might be useful!" Internal consistency of the rules matters in a game of this type. It's part of MGF that the rules actually model the world in a simulationist game, and having to handwave is bad and against the design objectives. The sensible fix instead would be to say that all apprentice shamans receive the Discorporation spell as a known rune-spell for free (or if you're feeling stingy, as mandatory first rune spell). Or just that they can discorporate the same way shamans can (but never should on their own, as this is super dangerous).

While I'm sure chaos mutation happened to a number of Lunars, should we really picture the Tripolis or Pelanda as eager tentacle-hives, rather than places viciously oppressed by their new monstrous overlords (and then killed in droves by Argrath)? I don't buy it.

I know there’s some write-up (likely inofficial) of Minlister that allows the character to cast a mass Arouse Passion on the drinkers. 🙂 Oh, and it’s easy to imagine situations where you would want to Arouse Honor in someone. Very practical. Any GM worth their salt would find a way to make Arouse Love have unexpected consequences... 🙂

Good point - Zola Fel’s intelligent fish clergy should reasonably have extended lifespans.

Agree about this. It’s also part of The Arming of Orlanth, so standard equipment for him.

As the wolf-brother isn’t a regular wolf, it makes sense that it would be longer-lived even “naturally”. By the way, I imagine Allied Spirits in animal form also don’t age the same way the regular animal would?