Akhôrahil

3 hours ago, Super Thunder Bros. said:

Thanks @Akhôrahil I’m going to leave things on the Wyter front for now as it probably complicates things.

Just to check, post adulthood initiation, you’d award them all of the Orlantha/Ernalda cult skill bonuses?

Welll... technically you earn the bonuses in the time between adulthood initiation and cult initiation, which can be a few years, but this is probably worth expediting so that the PCs can get the magical goodies. It's probably easiest either to ask them what cult they're looking to initiate into and give them the cult skill package soon enough (within a season or two?), or if you want it more detailed, simply ignore the cult skill bonus package altogether and run it as regular training where the cults provide such training in cult skills and ignore the cult skill bonus package altogether (after all, it's meant to be a simplified way to keep track of what you were taught in a cult, so it serves no particular purpose if you just track in-game training instead). I would lean towards the latter if you're tracking season by season, honestly.

On 3/17/2024 at 2:07 PM, Super Thunder Bros. said:

Players will start as young Lay members of their cults as well as lay members of Ernalda as she is a central figure in this clan. First sessions will be adulthood initiations, cult initiations will be played out further down the line.

What I’m wondering is what to do about skills. SSIS suggests characters should start as lay members of Ernalda/Orlanth thus gaining those passions and cult skills? (Do Lay members start with cult skills?) Then going on to initiate into the clan Wyter and community through the adulthood ritual.

In my opinion, you become a lay member of Orlanth or Ernalda (typically) through adulthood initiations, with the cult skills arriving as part of the training and education for it (some of which might come beforehand and some after, but it's probably easiest to hand them out as part of adulthood initiations). Cult initiations typically come a few (but only a few) years later, maybe at 18. The Wyter... not sure, but it seems weird to me if you would be an adult in the clan without magical clan membership for any length of time, so it might either come as part of the adulthood initiation or very closely afterwards.

I don't think shamans are any better at handling gods than your average initiate, unless that god specifically has a Spirit World version or connection (like Waha or Storm Bull, the ones that would have been classified as Great Spirits in the HW era). Most gods probably don't, although with Orlanth, Lightning Boy and Little Brother are reflections/incomplete versions of him in the Spirit World, and it's doubtful to what extent Kolat isn't just "Spirit Orlanth".

It helps a lot against unbalanced encounters if

1) Victory isn't mandatory to solve things, and

2) There are possible consequences well short of TPK.

Of course, this doesn't always work - when the PCs enter Dorastor with two Storm Bull initiates as in my campaign, every fight will be either a victory or end up with 2+ PCs dead (as those two won't retreat, and if berserking, will fight on until they're outright killed). That's their own damn fault, though, and a dead Storm Bull has no grounds to complain! 🙂

On 9/22/2018 at 10:42 AM, soltakss said:

However, my rules of thumb are:

• A PC Party can usually defeat an NPC party of similar skill level/numbers
• A PC Party often defeats an NPC Party of similar skill and slightly higher numbers
• A PC Party often defeats an NPC Party of higher skill and similar numbers
• A PC Party sometimes defeats an NPC Party of similar skill and much higher numbers
• A PC Party usually defeats a single NPC of higher skill 

Making the NPCs tougher, by making them trolls, giving them better armour, just increases their effective skill.

 

Also: Most monsters are less dangerous than they seem, because they're highly front-loaded. They can dish out damage if they luck out (this is one reason Shield is so good, or for really huge monsters, Earth Shield), but they're usually really bad at defending themselves, so they go down fast.

High armor helps them a lot, though, especially if combined with good POW (or they just go down to spells instead). Zeeth the Chaos whale with his 22 points of armour took a number of turns for my players to grind down (although the crit that sliced his tail off was fancy).

5 hours ago, SDLeary said:

A line of inquiry that should be played out in the BESTEST game for Mostali... Paranoia!  😆

”But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Mostal.”

Do dwarves have souls in the first place?

How does it work when a river flows uphill, in Glorantha?

For the regular flow, the logic is obvious - rain falls, runs downwards, collects into a river, flows out to sea, rises as clouds, and so on.

But when a river flows uphill, then you end up with a lot of water further up. But then what happens to it? Does it find some other place to flow back? Get absorbed into the ground? Something has to happen with all that water deposited further up on land!

14 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Makes me think what sense is being used for chaos?

Pain. Storm Bulls literally experience pain in the presence of Chaos. Yet another reason to drink, I guess.

I think it makes sense if equipment is just lost (although could be ransomed back at an additional cost). Consider:

Vargast has a lot of expensive stuff on him, worth well in excess of his ransom value. If you beat him up and take his stuff, it’s rightfully stolen and your property.

But if you also take him prisoner, now you would have to return his stuff for free when he’s ransomed, making the whole thing a losing proposition? That makes no sense to me!

Of course, you could still choose to set him free with his stuff, either to garner honor/rep or to try to maintain better relationships, but that seems like going above and beyond.

On 3/3/2024 at 12:02 PM, Scotty said:

No, see Wolfbrothers 2.9.6 Real Fire, Rocks and falling Damage in the Q&A.

I find it… odd… that a rock falling naturally on a Telmori will hurt it, while a rock thrown as a weapon won’t. I guess that’s magic for you.

I would personally also consider claws formed by Rune Magic as (Rune) magical for purposes of hurting stuff, and I do run it as a house rule in my game.

1 hour ago, scott-martin said:

Sounds to me like the Bat, while horrible to all external senses, might have experienced that flavor of illumination and so would befuddle the Bull.

According to the Bestiary, the Bat only has animal intelligence. I doubt this is consistent with being Illuminated.

I would say yes here on intuition, but there's textual evidence against it. Sure, you could argue that Oddi just misses his Sense Chaos roll here, but that doesn't seem diegetically interesting:

Quote

When we crossed into Bilini, we all were silent, but Oddi’s silence lasted longer, for the creature [the Crimson Bat] was a thing of chaos, yet his Storm Bull sense had betrayed him and he had known nothing chaotic was at hand.

On 3/2/2024 at 2:22 AM, Ian A. Thomson said:

Outside of that for most of them it is a matter of avoiding Stormbulls etc, but since the False Form spell exists I've also invented another of shorter duration that Rune Level chaos cultists can use to temporarily suppress their taint from detection. (Troop of Stormbulls, or Praxians with several Stormbulls ride into town around a corner by surprise - I can't see powerful intelligent Chaos cultists having no ability to obscure themselves even if just temporarily.)

But this could be a spell lasting days, so yes, allowing Chaos Rune-Levels to infiltrate social or political groups even in a culture/settlement where Stormbulls are relatively frequent

This seems like a sound move - in my Risklands campaign, there's this constant pressure of "well, this guy must be Illuminated or he'd be detected by Storm Bulls by now", and that's fine as long as it's one or two people, but beyond that, it starts to feel like a stretch.

It might also make sense if you lose all your chaotic powers and Chaos cult rune spells while under such a spell - you suppress them in order to pass undetected. (This also allows for nice cinematics when someone previously concealed reveals their TRUE FORM once combat is entered.)

I desperately tried to find what languages the Ralian Orlanthi speak, without success (even after writing to ask Jonas Schiött).

Anyone have any thoughts there? How many different languages between them (and what names - I was just boring and went with Lanksting and Delelan), related in what ways to the Central Genertelan ones, do they originate in Stormspeech the same way?

7 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Should a blessed parrying weapon do extra damage?

I think so. The more straightforward and systematized the rules are, the easier they are to keep track of.

5 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

I saw that on the Sartar map. Who knows how large it is?

Which Dragon's skull is it?

Gathering Thunder references Dragon Pass: Land of Thunder, which I don't have. It does indicate that the skull is 300 yards long, which seems reasonable to me.

So it's probably not to scale in this map.

I would have had it double the damage it inflicts on a weapon, the same way it doubles the damage it inflicts on a person.

This, of course, is not the same thing as doubling the initial damage rolled.

On 3/11/2023 at 4:31 PM, Erol of Backford said:

I assume you pass under it as you pass on the trail

Yes - you do this in one of the Sartar Rising books.

Elementals are shockingly fragile for their size, having no defensive skills, no armor, and acting on SR12.

Taking one down in one round should be very doable, and they should be given priority.

8 hours ago, davecake said:

I think most Gloranthans will believe that a Storm Bull is very dedicated to the destruction of Chaos, and I think most would presume that a Storm Bulls motivations are valid. But they are also generally not presumed to be smart, deep thinkers, so while people might presume the Storm Bulls senses are probably correct, that doesn’t mean they are going to presume the Storm Bulls advice about what to do in response is going to be followed. 

Although Praxians and Orlanthi are very serious about Chaos, so while they might not go with "axe to the head right this minute", they're unlikely to be slackers about Chaos either.

Genertela feels like it would be the size of Eurasia, but is far more like the confinental U.S.

Both the Lunar Empire and Pent are far smaller than at least I would think at first guess. The Lunar Empire is about the size of France, not Persia. Pent definitely isn’t anything like the Eurasian steppe. Kralorela isn’t China-sized, it’s California-sized.

40 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

OTOH, the guest did proclaim, in their part of the Hospitality Ritual, that they came as a friend, won't steal or bear arms, etc...  If the Ogre came with the intent of murdering and eating a villager, they lied.  If they fell prey to their foul desires, they broke their oath.  I'm not sure how things unfold then, but I'd be fine with a "get out of town before daybreak", and possibly even "Foul Slime, die...".  YGMV

Of course, this raises the question whether this releases you from the obligation, or merely curses them (and as a Chaotic creature, that ship has long sailed anyway).

1 hour ago, Ynneadwraith said:

You might think that, but I'm going to go out on a limb and speculate that you don't live in a culture with strong guest-rights. Guest rights are an all-caps RULE. The very Devil himself could trick you into giving him guest-rights and you would have to uphold them. It doesn't matter if he's the embodiment of all evil. It doesn't matter that he tricked you. You extended guest-rights, and unless he breaks them you are bound to uphold them.

Murdering a guest is obviously awful but ejecting one a bit early doesn't seem like it would be more than a -5% - -10% hit to Honor, which isn't ideal but also not terrible compared to the alternatives.

Or if you want to avoid even that, keep him under close watch until the customary hospitality period runs out (presumably the period of the contest in this case - you want him ejected from competing at least, though), send him on his way, give him a proper head start, and then hunt him down and kill him, Wyman Manderly-style (don't do the pie or we're back to Chaos again).

51 minutes ago, Ynneadwraith said:

Rescinding guest rights?! Whatever next! Might as well invite Wakboth into your house right now, seeing as nothing is sacred anymore.

People took guest rights very, very seriously. To the point pretty much all cultures had some variation of a myth of gods/spirits/angels coming to check up on people to make sure they were doing the right thing. Pretty much the only way for guest-rights to be rescinded was for the guest to renege on their obligations as a guest, rendering the arrangement moot.

I think telling someone it's time to go now and giving them a good head start before you try to murder them is fine, especially if they, you know, lied about being Chaotic.