Akhôrahil

1 hour ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

The Red Emperor in question seems to have been a mistake who endangered the Goddess's rule and expansion. 

Argenteus is a walking example of why the White Moonies are right.

On 11/18/2023 at 7:38 PM, Jens said:

Delecti, Ralzakark, Harrek, even Argrath, seem much more driven by their own designs than any God they used to follow. 

Agree. Jar-eel is an exception to this - she’s an exemplary Lunar. King Broyan was an exemplary Orlanth-worshiper.

On 11/19/2023 at 6:59 PM, Joerg said:

Not a fix, more of a want - something to enable a modicum of movement inside the Strike Ranks in a melee situation. Admittedly more based on armchair research and limited rubber sword experiences than actual martial arts training or real life combat situations.

It’s bad in a number of ways that once you’re in combat in RQG, no-one is moving anywhere until someone goes down - it makes the fights static and less interesting both tactically and narratively.

The Five-Foot Step in D&D was a good solution to this - you get some mobility and easy disengagement unless your opponent is specifically good at countering this. In RQ, it probably wouldn’t be to hard to allow one person to Move a bit and let the other decide whether to follow to maintain melee, and similarly to allow strikes to have a small pushback with follow-up.

Suggested name: Blades in the Moonlight

8 hours ago, David Scott said:

Mashing together the Dragon Pass board game and the new Mythology book, brings up that only 3% of initiates in Sartar are Humakti

3% doesn’t sound like a lot, but Sartar can probably keep at the very most 10% of its population at arms over a longer haul (and likely less), while the large majority of Humakti are professional warriors and soldiers. They will make up a substantial chunk of the fighting men.

5 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

OK, let’s have a go. This is me improvising (on RQ2), not holy writ.

Skeletons and zombies are just corpses controlled by necromancers — “dead creatures animated by Rune magic” (RQ2 Classic, p. 97) — they have no intelligence

RQG zombies at least have (a limited) intelligence. Skeletons are mindless constructs. Neither have a metabolism, it seems.

Glorantha clearly has two kinds of undead - mere constructs (zombies, skeletons) and beings with a stolen metabolism (ghouls, vampires). These are so different that I'm not sure they belong in the same category. The former may or may not be Chaotic depending on method of creation (which is weird in itself); the latter universally are (I think?).

(Dead spirits are a third non-undead type separate from either.)

6 hours ago, Richard S. said:

The Humakti definition of undeath is "maintaining a body separate from its spirit". IMO, that implies that undead need to a) have had a spirit at one point and b) have lost that spirit but still remain physically active.

I think it's fair to say that the Undead must have at one point been alive. Animated statues clearly don't count. Honestly, I'm not quite sure how skeletons do - they're merely animated bones, correct? This seems like a crime against the grave, not a crime against nature.

3 hours ago, metcalph said:

I don't agree that Gark is deceptive.  His claims of peace and eternal life could be totally legitimate and he would still be just as bad to the Cosmos. 

I agree. For a certain subset of people, merely avoiding the afterlife and their rightful fate there would be a huge upgrade.

I believe Gark delivers on calm/oblivion.

(Thought experiment: Cthulhu merely wants to kill and eat me and then it's oblivion, after a limited moment of horror and agony. Yahweh wants to have me tortured for eternity for not believing in him. Cthulhu > Yahweh, personally. If I thought this was a real choice, I would want Cthulhu to eat me!) 

Also, Gagarth is likely more important in the Underworld than in most places you will find him in the mundane world. If you don't have a psychopomp to guíde you, you will be in severe difficulties from the Wild Hunt as you enter the Underworld.

6 hours ago, Beoferret said:

This thread is raising a question in my mind: wouldn't any and all Humakti desert anyone who allied with Delecti (a hero of undeath)? 

Presumably yes, but Argrath has plot immunity against any consequences of his actions, so I'm sure he'll be fine.

No, this is it. Gagarth is the rapacious outsider without honor or regard for kin. It's not exactly that Gagarth is a bandit himself, but he does take in every kind of scum.

I would love to see the Great Hunt statted up some time - this seems like it should be relevant when it's out and about, but I've yet to see anything really describing what happens.

I also wonder what replaces the Whirlvish parts outside of Prax - they kinda require sands?

(I had a Gagarthi borderline hero NPC in my game - he had a "Dishonor" passion, not merely not caring about honor but actively opposing it.)

Meet the new Emperor, same as the old Emperor.

Those might just be regular dead and not undead. 🙂

9 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Gagarth

Whirlvishes aren't undead - they're spirits, much as ghosts (although embodied). Or were you thinking of something else there?

In addition to the listed, would there be non-Chaotic sorcery-created undead (at least the mere constructs, like zombies and skeletons)?

Also, Humakt is very much opposed to a subset of Chaos, i.e. the undead.

(Not sure how well this goes with Illumination, tbh.)

4 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

I suppose you've covered it in the qualification, but I'd very loudly point out that it's the Mostali that really gave us Iron and it's manipulation. So, I don't think it's really that much of a 'death metal' in that way.

If it's death, it's only for elves and trolls.

On 11/12/2023 at 12:43 PM, Joerg said:

On the matter of "never trust ...": this basically means "never accept hospitality from ..." as a practical consequence. Obviously there would be ways around this, or a good number of Yelmalians would be barred from entering cities run by an Orlanth Rex city king, but it can result in quite a bit of bad vibes when approaching a place in company of bearers of such a geas.

The larger downside is that you can’t really be in an adventuring party with such a person, unless perhaps utterly forced into it by circumstances.

4 hours ago, Steve said:

But it seems entirely reasonable to me that damaging an iron weapon doesn't work in the same way as it would in our own world. An enchanted iron sword is a magical weapon, and magic has effects in Glorantha that simply don't exist in our own world. Making it stronger doesn't feel like a stretch to me, but of course YGWV.

I think we're all on board with enchanted iron weapons (essentially steel) not breaking as easily. This is more about why it can parry more damage as well, separately from being damaged itself.

21 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

I haven’t read it, but there is Blue Moon, White Moon from John Wick

He should know about assassinations, amiright? 🙂

Moana (yes, the Disney movie - it's unbelievably Gloranthan!)

Age of Bronze

Artesia

Barbaren

The Northman

Princess Mononoke

Bahubaali

The Spine of Night

1 hour ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

I think this would work best for all enchanted weapons.  A iron sword doesn't change the laws of physics regarding mass and leverage.  And before you parrot "Glorantha has no physics", look at the pages and pages of charts regarding the Strength one needs to wield various weapons.

That might not be unreasonable - it's non-obvious what an iron weapon does apart from not breaking that makes it absorb more damage. We're not talking Captain America's shield here (that's simulated through Earth Shield instead).

(And honestly, the whole "absorb damage" thing probably isn't the ideal design - most defense is about deflecting or not opening up in the first place, and "opposing weapon slams down with full force on yours" is less common. On the other hand, RQ has to be able to handle a giant slamming you with a 10d6 tree.)

11 hours ago, Mordante said:

Been reading some supplements recently and one of them raised a question regarding iron weapon hit points/parrying.

It stated that iron weapons had the improved hit points of 50% extra but could only block the weapons original amount of damage for example iron broadsword when parrying blocks 12 damage.

Enchanted Iron Weapons have +50% HP straight up.

You're probably mixing it up with Enchanted Copper weapons, which have +100% HP for purposes of not breaking but no bonus to damage absorbed. Which is pretty damned good for keeping the weapon in shape, less so for its user. 

1 hour ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

*SIZ is also not linear but apparently logarithmic.  Demonstrated by the table of examples in the rules.  But I suspect most players can't define "logarithm"  and many have never used logs.  Few will. tolerate a rule that requires threm, it is not fun gaming stuff.

GURPS famously uses logarithms, and I think it's fair to have them invisible behind the game design, but yeah, SIZ certainly isn't linear.

17 hours ago, metcalph said:

Apostates might be a better word for them.

My headcanon is that the Pavis dwarves pretend to be merely your run-of-the-mill heretics, while in fact they're beyond the pale even for heretics.

This does become a problem another profession is better at the actual profession’s job. For instance, if you want a better hunter, make a herder.