Akhôrahil

“La Petite Mort”, I believe that one summons a Humakti Duck?

That seems to be the theory - isolationism is good for you, while cosmopolitanism is bad (just look at the God Learners or the Lunar Empire). Who needs trade or cultural exchange? They have nothing that we want!

I have no problems with Yelmalio. Courtesy often goes hand in hand with patriarchy and thinking women weak and helpless. Now if he would only bathe now and then...

Yes, he really is. A powergamer the GM should have a serious talk with. (Someone noted in the Swedish Facebook group that Sir Ethilrist screams "PC" as well.)

It's more that he doesn't have a character arc, and that he's so awesome that he can do anything with very few setbacks. What is Argrath's internal life like? Does he ever doubt his life's mission? Does he have any personal conflicts? Does he care about a single other person in the entire universe (even Harrek cares about one other person!)? I don't get the impression that even Illumination actually changes him one bit - it just gives him a bigger magical toolbox (and perhaps even less regard for anyone else, including gods).

At least he died on the way, betrayed everyone who ever trusted him, and stuff like that!

In a way, I find Argrath's story a bit unsatisfying from a dramatic standpoint. He swears to destroy the Lunar Empire. And then he does.

The Lunar Way outside of the Empire can be pretty neat, though - Lunar Arrolia is one of the best places in Glorantha to live (well, apart from that Kingdom of War stuff).

If I ever ran the whole thing, I would be disappointed with my players if they never decided that enough is enough with regards to Argrath. Making peace with the Good Empire (especially if it's just the breakaway Provinces, the more acceptable part of the Empire) really should be the way to go. But Argrath is far too obsessed for that.

We can tell his position on empires at least - they're pretty much universally bad. So I don't think there's any doubt that he would be opposed to the Lunar empire, while likely being a lot more positive towards individual Lunars and their philosophy and religion. (There's this odd subcurrent in Glorantha that mixing up religions is bad, while getting isolated from your neighbors by a magical barrier is good for you and leads to a perfect society...)

Also when it comes to being bound to the land - the Sartarite cottar might have serious practical economic issues with leaving, but isn't legally forced to stay. This isn't serfdom by any means. I like this - it further makes it clear that the status of the cottar is as a client and non-landowner, not a serf. I'm less certain about this - if you can't maintain Free standard of living, I believe you're likely to slip into a Cottar state sooner or later. This is a status society, and if you can't display your status, things might go poorly for you next time there's a land use redistribution. Although perhaps there might be mitigating factors - everyone remembers how you held the line in That Battle, or you might be the only one crazy enough to run the Rotwood Stead and no-one is taking it away any day soon.

A part of that is that Stone - Mostal's brother - is dead, killed by elves during the Gods' War.

While Elmal is a hottie?

He's the god of the sun and the sun is hot? Unlike Yelmalio who is the god of the light of the Sun Dome, which isn't hot.

Good news for Seven Mothers cultists, who get an even higher multiplier! 😉

(deleted, got it!)

In my campaign, I ruled that it's actually impressively fertile in general (in the Frog River Gorge, at least), but that there's a lot of weeding required to get rid of the various chaos-tainted mutants that keep cropping up and have to be burned.

I've been making some initial attempts at a more advanced stead-based economy for my campaign, but it's tricky, trickier still since it has to feel like proper RQ (rather than the highly abstracted HQ community system), and on top of everything there's some pretty advanced domain knowledge, both about farming and history, required.

And also that the quality of the land doesn't matter. (In a more advanced system, this would be how Bless Crops would work - it would increase the quality of your land for the year, enabling better harvests. Creating a multiplier for your income rather than a bonus to your roll.)

It's better, but it's not a lot better, and a few additional Rune points outweigh a lifetime's experience.

That’s what happens when you have a game this complex, and (apparently) without some dedicated rules QA guy in the editing process.

The harvesting and especially the plowing supposedly takes skill, i.e. farming. Bless Crops means that this is pretty irrelevant.

Assuming they do any healing at all (which they normally would), likely including a herbal garden.

Another thing to keep in mind is that for a Free household, you need a very high skill level - around 80%, which is likely higher than the average - to ”break even” with regards to Free standard of living, and that’s before any penalties. Bless Crops is what makes the whole system work and produce any surplus. What’s annoying with it is how the bonus doesn’t really have any limits. Take any city-dweller or merchant who never touched a plow, with nothing but the base cultural skill, and slap a Bless Crops 3 on the farm, and they will do perfectly fine. It kinda depreciates the Farming skill when it’s that easy.

Because Rune Points are capped by Cha (per cult, but I imagine the Bloody Tusk doesn’t have too many friendly cults...).