Akhôrahil

Not usually, but if you're performing an action that takes 13+ Strike Ranks, it does. This is how big Sorcery spells or that really humongous Sword Trance gets cast, when they can't fit into one round. This means that in some cases, something with a 13 SR cost will be cast quicker than something with 12 SRs. That's just the way it works.

Actually, why is Yelmalio depicted in armor all the time, if it’s such big deal and part of a Good Thing that he lost it?

With both Shield and Earthshield, Ernalda makes a better warrior cult than Yelmalio. I find this highly amusing.

Thanks, beat me to it. Ernalda has the biggest spell list in the game.

I have the idea that Tradetalk includes an accounting system (like Incan knot ”writing”) without having a full written language (because what would be the point?).

This makes sense though. In the kind of setting Glorantha (especially the Barbarian parts) is, reading and writing are like piloting a jet aircraft - highly technical, really demanding, only taught by experts, and not something you do unless it’s your job. We’re not even talking antiquity or the Middle Ages here, and I doubt 1% of Sartar is literate (if it is, it will be mostly be because of the Lhankor Mhy cult).

I realized that half my players had thought that when I said "cult skills", I referred to those they get from start, not the ones in the cult description. I thought this design is asking for that kind of misunderstanding.

I'm sure counting as your own Ancestor opens up all kinds of shenanigans with Daka Fal rune magic!

And queue all the time travel paradoxes - what if you went back in myth and killed your ancestor?

I wonder if Illumination might also serve as a "cure". Doubt should probably get listed under Passions these days.

Tell him I approve and that I'm cheering for his success!

Although I could see a little bit of leeway here, if you "change" something that no-one knows anything about. Perhaps you could force Paragua to make a mistake and create a hidden weakness in one spot of the wall, and later you "find" this weakness in the real world?

Yes, if it’s a sufficiently mythical event, ideally where the Compromise is a bit shaky already. Castle Blue, Battle of Night and Day, Orlanth vs. Zistor...

Magic Rune, so whatever Cult Rune you feel like for any Cult spirit, by the rules as written (p. 317).

Perhaps not 5%, but yes - The World Is Made Of Everything. Even Argrath has a little Moon element in him.

Shield will make a giant difference - it’s basically the best spell in the book, with no weaknesses and overwhelming defensive power, and you only need one good combat spell to dump your Rune Points into in order to be credible in a fight.

Or if you think the obsidian thing is a bit high tech, merely the kind of snow goggles polar expeditions used (which keep out light and reflections) should be a lot better than nothing. Scott's snow goggles Inuit-style snow goggles, bone

Maybe this? ”I reject your reality and substitute my own!”

That sounds more like Illumination to me. The God Learners were very interested in what’s true.

However, the Hero Plane(s) are also where you go when you HeroQuest, correct? And those parts, while changeable to an extent, are outside Time (but also in different mythical time periods - for instance, when HeroQuesting, you can tell when you are from the color of the sky). To an extent, tSotGL makes it sound as though they could HeroQuest the God World and not merely the Hero Plane(s).

Now I can't find it explicitly, which raises the question whether I made it up/analyzed what was there and conflated it with canon... I mean, we do know that they could permanently alter the Gods World, and Sorcery was their preferred tool (and what the Guide's definition makes it sound like). Anyway, the Guide still has one explicit definition: "The secret is dead with its initiates, but was evidently called the RuneQuest Sight. It apparently allowed initiates to see the world as a series of patterns, relationships, and repetitive reflections which could be organized according to the now famous Runes. Their Heroquesters followed the paths of their Runes through the Otherworld, and then shaped the Otherworld by planting those Runes into other parts of it." Combine it with the other definition in the Guide: "A man whose name is lost made a discovery thought impossible. Mixing magic was always a dream of the God Learners, but seemed to be impossible due to some mysterious internal structure of the world. Yet, around 700, that forgotten person did it: he learned how to use sorcerous manipulation to alter divine Rune magic." Which are both in complete harmony with the text you quoted. Taken together, it seems reasonably clear to me that the Secret was all about applying a naturalistic sorcerous world-view and methodology to both the physical world and the God World. That said, I'm super unclear on the relationship between the God World and the Hero Plane(s). They keep sounding like very different things, but I'm not sure how they differ so fundamentally. HW made it seem as though when you go to Orlanth's Hall, you're in the God World, and then you can exit from there to Hero Planes.

The Guide gives a direct answer: the God-Learner secret is the ability to change the Gods World using sorcery.

I don't know... take the best athletes in the world, and I can guarantee you that they all but universally have a trainer (well, multiple, most likely).

Not by the rules, and not really going by the real world either. The trainer needs to know what works for training, not have a higher stat.

Which is also really weird - you think people who are utterly excellent at stuff didn’t get there by training their asses off? It seems like someone’s idea at a balancing rule, not something that has anything to do with modelling reality.