Akhôrahil

So this isn’t some outright error, just weirdness: A cestus is a metal boxing glove. It has 4 HP or 8 HP depending on whether it’s Light or Heavy. Wrist Wraps, meanwhile, are simple leather wrappings but have 10 HP. How does this make sense?

If you treat it as a standard hit, rather than applying the regular Attack & Parry Results table to it, then you don’t get the the ”1 HP” effect for NW attacks, agree (I had missed that final ”no”). That does make the results table even more convoluted, though. (Also, does it really make sense that every parry is as damaging as a full attack? Wouldn’t a lot of them be just fending? I would much rather have my hand impact the club you’re defending with rather than being struck by it.) But then what about parrying with NWs? Is the intention that parrying with NW is only meaningful if you get a better result (or if you’re just happy getting an arm damaged rather than a random body part, which can make sense). I don’t think boxers would agree with this…

Ralzakark is an excellent heroquester, I'm sure.

I assume that this means that in the many cases where the attacking weapon takes 1 point of damage, it's soaked by the armor? This will sometimes make natural weapons sturdier than the normal kind.

By implication of W&E, you treat a limb (and by extension, other natural weapons) as a weapon with Hit Points equal to the Hit Points of the limb, then apply damage just as you would to a weapon. What I don't like about this is that armor comes out weird - either it has no effect, which seems odd (and plus, it means that heavily armored creatures with natural attack are easier to hurt with parries), or it works as usual, which is also odd (as it means that something that would do one point of damage to a weapon doesn't hurt an armored limb). My house-ruled way of running it is to sum limb HP and armor (including natural), and then treat the limb as a weapon of that HP. But yeah, my players really prefer to parry with weapons rather than shields - it can sometimes do more damage than the attacks themselves.

Agree. I read ”must herd only horses” as ”cannot herd non-horses”, not ”must herd horses”.

Personally, I hardly ever break the books open - I need that Search function, damnit! 🙂 49.99 is a great price.

Agree. Dorastor is a "Chaotic ecosystem", so to speak. It functions in ways you can rationally comprehend - you get a Chaos Flood when you have a Broo spawning explosion, and you get Chaos raids whenever some Chaotic warlord has assembled the forces for it (and/or is Ralzakark in disguise).

I wonder whether a big Earthquake spell would make the Chaos situation better or worse?

21 Hides means the Chaos incursions happen yearly.

Two factors that might help to explain this: 1. The 60L income is in addition to having full Standard of Living already paid by the employer of the RQG warrior. Since Free SoL comes to 60L, the cost of paying the Warrior is actually 120L yearly (being a warrior gives you a lot more extra income than being a farmer). 2. The mercenary pay is presumably for active duty in an ongoing war, making it a lot more dangerous than being a full-time clan or tribal warrior on average. It makes sense to cut this pay for comparatively garrison duty in peacetime. Since the mercenary also can't expect to be employed full-time (for the same reason), payment needs to cover costs during slow years as well. Warrior occupation actually looks pretty good in comparison. You also have a better chance of being cared for in your old age, I would guess. Mercenary officer does pay superbly, though, and many starting Warrior PCs would be officer material already.

I realize that - that makes it worse, as +5% to Harvest roll or Income roll is less that 5% to just earnings. Sure. But, unless I completely screwed up my math, +5% to either Income roll or Harvest roll comes out as less than 5% additional earnings, while having an upkeep for the granting improvement that costs more than the expected gain. I did a spreadsheet for this, and +5% to Income roll means something like +3.5% to expected income (on average, naturally). For instance, going from 55% to 60% for the Income roll for an 80L Hide earns you an average of 2.8 L yearly (counting the full spread of results, and this is pre rents and taxes!), which means that paying 4-6 L in yearly upkeep to achieve this makes for a net loss. Harmast should never make these Improvements - they just don't pay, even long-term. +5% to Harvest roll is actually slightly better than +5% to Income roll (this surprised me), but is still not enough to cover a 4L maintenance cost. So basically, you have to pay an initial cost as an investment, and even after that, there's a net expected loss on a yearly basis for several of the improvements. This makes these improvements awful economics. What I would expect is an initial investment cost that then results in a return of investment over many years, eventually paying off. Statue/Standing Stone does work this way as it has no maintenance cost. I don't think you can even argue that this is a risk reduction for the farmer, as the farmer is now stuck with fixed maintenance cost on top of his regular SoL costs. Halving maintenance costs for these improvements would lead to small expected gain instead of a small expected loss. Perhaps too small - the RoI is really bad - but it's something at least. Meanwhile, the RoI of getting yourself a Hide's worth of Cattle or (better yet!) Sheep and hiring a herder for it is pretty good (although this does assume that you have grazing lands as well) My point is that Harmast shouldn't make improvements in the first place if they result in an expected net loss for him.

True. It's actually impressive as all heck that the Skanthi have lived in the same place for 1500 years and weathered the upheavals (Lokamayadon, the EWF).

Presumably forced into it by losing in the Theyalan Wars leading up to Night and Day, but yes. Losing their ethnic identity in the post-450 churn makes sense to me (Arkati violence helps). Talastar was a mess. Any remnants are probably cultural and linguistic artefacts, which are hard to separate from early Theyalan influence on the Talastari.

I’m thinking the Skanthi are involved here as well, as Heortlings incorporated into Talastar by Lokamayadon during the Theyalan Wars. Possibly even other northern Heortlings dragooned into it. Edit: Duh, the text basically confirms the Skanthi, as they were Penenthelli, and the most Lokamayadonized part as well.

The Infithtelli was one of the Winter Tribes. History of the Heortling Peoples say (p. 10, c. 100-150 S.T.): "3000. Another 3000 or so have migrated northwards (Talastar)[...]" Does anything ever come of this later? Do we know where in Talastar they ended up? Were they simply assimilated (if not right away, then during Lokamayadon, who at the very least must have had them under his command)? 3000 people in the years 100-150 is a pretty decent number.

No. There’s no stopping a player character with a lenient GM. 🙂

It's a good thing it grows back! 🙂 I like this a lot - it feels very Gloranthan that you wouldn't necessarily need specific magical technical expertise to create a magical item, but that it could happen in other ways.

Important to remember that the caster only has to provide the first point of POW. This makes it a lot less onerous. And if you're a priest, the money goes to the cult... which you can probably in turn control to a significant extent. If you're the head honcho, you're essentially paying to yourself.

My PCs would love it if it's always cloudy, so that they can do their favorite thing, spamming Thunderbolts....

Even allied spirits aren't disembodied spirits - that's the whole point! If it's manifested in the regular world, inside a creature or object, it's embodied and goes by the normal rules. It should probably work as any other character, although you're completely within your rights as GM to say "hey, it's a dragon - it takes centuries for these guys to improve!" After all, they wouldn't want that centuries-old dream dragon they're about to fight get seasonal experience on its combat skills... 🙂

One has to wonder if this is philosophically sound, though - everything about the Moon is that it's neither stasis nor free change, but cyclical. Like it says in Carmina Burana: "semper crescis aut decrescis" The practical benefits of the Glowline are obvious, but it might still have been a mistake from a more mystical standpoint, locking the Moon into stasis. Does this explain things about the Empire is getting messed up? Is it a coincidence that its fall starts at a would-be Temple of the Reaching Moon?

While not the actual rules, I really like the solution that your Move Silently gets shifted one level of success. After all, if you are perfectly soundless (as even a failed Move Silently roll would suggest), it will be impossible to hear you even on a critted Listen. +100% to Move Silently would work as well.

Soloquest online, passage 153: "Roll Vasana’s Lance attack and contest it with Vostor’s Kopis parry. If Vostor parries successfully, he reduces the damage by his kopis’ hit points. Any overwhelming damage is then applied to his left arm and reduced by his armor. " I can't see why damage would carry into Vostor's left arm specifically - he's right-handed and he's parrying with his kopis.

It's hard to find since it's at the top rather than among the skills.