Akhôrahil

This is something I run as a house-rule for a lot of stuff - that "basic familiarity" is something that can be required but also be achieved ad hoc. That valley where they speak a really weird dialect? Penalty to your Language skill until you have grown accustomed to it (in some days or weeks). Fighting from a chariot when you don't even have basic training for it? The kind of penalty you mention, until they have tried it a few times or had a crash course. Practicing your Craft skill in a different culture's workshop? Takes a little while to get familiar with the tools and process. This weirdly designed battle-axe? Practice with it for a few days to get familiarized. These things then don't boil up to the level of full rules.

(Full) shamans have access to superb Spirit Magic with a ton of spell access, loads of MP, and various Spirit Magic advantages. Overcoming POW will be trivial once the Fetch has grown. They have Rune Spell access through Spirit cults. They can discorporate and engage in Spirit combat. Spamming all but irresistible Demoralize or Befuddle is already very powerful. If anything, a more advanced Shaman risk becoming overpowered in fights. Assistant Shamans on the other hand lack many of these tools. You can be of good use with just standard Spirit Magic, but they tend to be spirit specialists, rather. Look for that full Shaman Initiation.

"Your eyes are like the Twin Stars..."

Celestial Lore can be used to: Tell the time of day and night Assist in navigation Give crucial information for Sky-based rituals, such as both the opening of the Temple of the Reaching Moon and Starbrow's assault on it Assist in divination Know about stuff that fall from the sky Know about and navigate the Sky World Not anything the average farmer will have much use for, but also not nothing.

One argument here might be that while it’s surely better to be used to fighting from a chariot, it might be below the level of granularity of the RQ rules. And further, that while a charioteer is likely to be good at his craft, it’s a less likely skill for most warriors to pick up. Basically, if you use this rule, most people would be better served by avoiding chariots unless they’re the very rare specialist. That the charioteer gets to take the skill responsibility is part of what makes the profession work out. It might be easier to just make the passenger take either a Dex x5 or Drive Chariot roll when something bad happens.

Air and Beast in RQG.

While Orlanth is violent in most aspects, that doesn’t mean a PC initiate has to be (especially not in Thunderous). Pick Charisma, Heal Body and Command Sheep for your Rune Spells, and you have presumably chosen a less violent path (violence is always an option, but it doesn’t have to be the first option). It can look a lot like the Allfather aspect in HW.

Odayla isn’t exactly non-violent, but perhaps moreso than most of the Air gods. Even if it’s just from staying away from other people.

I agree with this. Note that the Bestiary calls them "embodied", which seems to point in the same direction.

Or even with your one hide of land, if your campaign is based on a farm, such as in the Risklands Campaign model. What's necessary here is for improvements to make economic sense - an initial investment is fine; maintenance that's higher than the additional income isn't. From the implicit economic model in RQG, it seems you typically get about 8% Return on Investment, when things are going well. Of course, things won't always be going well - there are raids, cattle-rustling and unnatural disasters, but that's just adventure fodder. This is a completely different beast. It might be most easily handled by having a number of trade routes (including potential ones the PCs might establish), each with a different level of payoff and risk, and what goods are involved. I think this would be easier than having an actual market system, but if you're willing to go all out on spreadsheets, you could model a bunch of goods, supply and demand for them, how the PC traders fulfilling demand will lower the prices temporarily, and so on. The computer game Star Traders does this really nicely, but it's going to be a major load on the GM to set up and run this.

I imagine that if you don’t specific a material, you get some kind of ”default” option. When I asked, got a yes on (unenchanted) Iron, no on gunpowder. Presumably you can’t generate magic, so I imagine enchanted iron is out. Poison is explicitly in (weirdly, without even requiring Substance), and reasonably you can make acid, limited by Substance level. I personally think Antivenom should be symmetrical with Poison, which would make Hallucinated antivenom super useful. I would certainly allow Illusory and Hallucinary Hazia, which certainly offers options. Will illusory food with Substance nourish? What if it’s extended to 24 hours? I imagine you could make trolls really unhappy with 5 kg worth of very fine iron filings that you can move around at will… Will an illusory fire (with Substance) ignite other stuff? Presumably yes? How much fire is 5 kg, for that matter? If the illusion does the amount of damage the real thing would, then an illusory raging inferno should be exceptionally powerful (this would have been quite limited in the base game rules).

This is part of something I have been thinking about a lot recently - that RQ skills need to be a little wider than they first appear. If you have Read/Write, you know how to create and maintain your writing utensils. If you have Ride (Horse), you can also take care of horses, evaluate a horse, maintain (and maybe even emergency repair) saddle and tackle, train the horse, and so on. With any craft, you can take care of your tools and probably do some adjacent things (like with the Redsmithing discussion here). Farm can evaluate land values.

I would even assume that it’s part of Redsmithing (or at least inherited at half chance) to know how to make handles (in wood, bone, horn and/or leather) for swords, as well as to socket a spearhead with a wooden shaft (although that shaft itself is likely Woodworking).

Note that this doesn’t work even with Illusion. You need to add Motion to get movement - without that, the illusion doesn’t move, even when it ”naturally” would. You could simulate a falling rock by adding Motion, but the speed it could ”fall” at would be limited by the amount of Motion you put in.

My point is that if Shield/Countermagic doesn't protect your sword, a piece of equipment you hold, would it protect stuff you wear?

I wonder exactly how strictly this should be interpreted. Does a Shield protect your clothing from Ignite? Does it protect your armor from Vomit Acid?

Since the item with the allied spirit in it is worth far more to the owner than to the captor, an agreement should be very possible here, agree. Also, since the allied spirit can cast spells, and the original owner can cast spells through it, it might be really hard (depending on cult) to keep it. An Orlanth allied spirit could fly out or teleport, a Humakti one could kill anyone in line of sight, you should only keep the Maran Gor one if you enjoy having your tula hit by earthquakes, and so on.

Also, critically, not kin.

My personal view is that the rules technically say this, but that it makes no sense and that I ignore it. Targeting a spell doesn't allow for POW vs. POW, and "targeting" a person just means that it will auto-target a spell on that person instead.

And also that the Vendref at the end of the day still have Orlanthi ancestry, making them unruly slaves or serfs. In my reading, part of what enables Orlanthi Kings to earn the King of Dragon Pass title is the implicit threat that they could stoke and support a Vendref revolt, that would be an existential threat against the Pure Horse People. They can manage the Vendref on their own, but with outside support? So it’s far preferable to ally with any sufficiently strong Orlanthi ruler, through ritual marriage.

Almost - you can either target a known (or guessed) spell, or cast the Dispel ”blindly” against the weapon to dispel whatever is there. But the latter use doesn’t allow a POW roll anyway, any more than targeting a PC the same way, as (presumably) there’s no POW vs. POW roll here in the first place. It does protect against hostile spells against the weapon, though, like Dullblade or Crack, that now require POW vs. POW when you have a spirit in it.

Ah, you reason that the sword isn’t protected by a person’s Shield spell? Is this explicit in the rules? I mean, it makes some sense, and even more so when you consider a Woad spell.

"Fail forward" is a crucial technique in a game like RuneQuest. Essentially, instead of failure, let a failed roll be success with a (bad!) consequence. Instead of failing to overhear a crucial conversation, a part of it could be misheard, leading the PCs into danger before they get back on the right track (it was "pay the toll", not "pay the troll"), or the PC edges closer to overhear, and is detected after hearing the important stuff.

If you have enough crystals or spirits, you may be able to punch through that with Boosting. But yeah, as soon as Shield is in play, your priority must be to get rid of the Shield (or engage in Spirit Combat, as that is one of the very few weaknesses of Shield).

Runes isn't the biggest deal when it comes to experience levels, but you could easily cut the bonus amount down. One thing that might be a bit boring is that unless you also cap the Rune percentage, players are likely to pick up 90% or so in their most important rune anyway, so fewer Rune Points just mean that they're worse at the rest. Skills (combat in particular) and Rune Points are the big drivers of PC power. Runes and Passions do more for characterization, and are worth keeping in place for that reason.