Akhôrahil

Also, anyone who's farming land (20% tax, presumably 10% to each temple) regardless of initiate status. You need to be a non-initiate non-farmer in order to get away from it. That's, what, 10% of the population?

One of the things that makes Heortling society interesting is that it does have an answer to how a society works without a police force. Wergild and other fines, outlawry, vengeance, blood feud, and even just regular social pressure keeps things functional, although the blood feuds and kinstrife might well be considered the failure modes of the solution. I like to shock newcomers by telling them that murder isn't illegal, and then unpack the statement.

Don't forget about the Edo police, though. It was impressively sophisticated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edo_period_police

Proper investigative police yes, various city watchmen no. "Riot police" armed with clubs of some kind seems to be a historical universal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigiles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police#Ancient_policing

This is interesting - who would the most traditionalist major Orlanthi heroes be? I'm thinking Alakoring, Vargast Redhand (slayer of Loko Moko), Garundyer...?

Surely it must? Otherwise Wind Lords or Swords couldn't possibly meet their 90% time requirement.

He does? Missed that! That makes him more farmer-friendly, certainly. She is the best healer, without doubt. But Ernalda is a solid healer who can then do a thousand other things besides.

I definitely agree it’s not about mere belief. Belief is just a personal state of mind. There has to be a social aspect to it as well. The myth has to be socially constructed, practiced, and reinforced (this is also a difference between mere belief and a religion - a religion is inherently social and performative). While I do believe you can HeroQuest any myth, a lot of stuff people believe aren’t myths. For instance, does Bad King Urgrain rise to the quality of myth, or is it just stories and sayings and fables? I’m not sure, but I think I would lean towards the latter.

IIRC, Greg weighed in on this, and said that things could be mythically true without being historically true. You can certainly prove (for a value of “prove”) that it’s mythically true (in the context of your myth structure) that Boldhome was built in a day. Or Neil Gaiman: “Things need not have happened to be true.”

I don’t believe this is really a restriction - the important thing is that you HeroQuest a myth. It can even be factually incorrect. Take a myth like the Grazers’ creation story (separated centaurs) - we know for a fact that it’s not what happened, but I’m certain it can be HeroQuested regardless.

I like the idea that he had to heroquest to become a descendant and obtain his Sartar rune, but this is completely not-canonical. (Inspired by a humor boardgame where the goal was to become king, and one of the things you needed was to get yourself a royal birthmark.)

Can’t remember, probably somewhere in the rules QA thread.

TV-Hannibal Lecter strikes me as a good start for portraying Vadeli.

I have said it before: the opposite of Illumination is also Illumination.

The obvious use for Sing is as a skill augment.

It's been clarified that you get the POW not from defeating Disease Spirits in general, but from being possessed by one and managing to evict it.

Ernalda with all associated cults and the full set of husband-protectors has a ridiculous amount of spells! Perhaps the only god who has both Cloud Call and Cloud Clear, for one thing!

Oh yeah, factor 2-3 was completely normal. 0.9 seems like you should just get out of the grain business, though - it means a steady loss.

I have this vague notion that sufficiently good sorcerers are going to be massively abusable, but neither me nor any player has bothered to truly read up on them.

While outside the spirit of Egregious Munchkinnery, I would probably make it really hard to convince Humakti to part with a Sever Spirit to anyone not thoroughly trusted. But your point stands.

Perhaps the biggest deal is when the Shaman manages to pick up offensive Rune Magic from some Spirit Cult, and then auto-overcomes POW with the spell.

I’m fairly certain that most GMs will house-rule against this once they see it in action a higher power-levels. My big question is whether to keep it for defence or not.

It’s semi-supported by the rules (edit: fully supported, just didn’t find it at first), but this could as easily be a case of poor rules editing. Above all, it is bonkers, which is a good argument against it.

It’s basically a number you made up. We have no idea whether NPCs get POW gain rolls (in fact, the world as presented wouldn’t make sense If they did - who the heck would keep to just 3 rune points under these circumstances?), and even then, if they would get more than two such rolls per year.

Wait, really? Can you expound on this? I can see the argument for a single year, but surely this isn’t sustainable?