Akhôrahil

”During most of the Third Age heroquesting was considered evil, because the God Learners were so enthusiastic about it.” Presumably this only applies to experimental or exploratory heroquesting, not the regular kinds done at Sacred Time?

I'm thinking a "credit rating" system will work best for when your flow of income is mostly the regular kind - it establishes your typical amount of resources, and when your barn is burned down or you gain cattle from a raid, you adjust the credit rating down or up to reflect the new circumstances. If the campaign centers around running a farm for instance, a credit rating system will likely work a lot better than trying to balance accounts in Lunars. Your credit rating here will essentially be your standard of living as well as your "reserves" from your standing in the community (it has been noted that peasants with surplus often found that the best way of "investing" it was to throw a party or help struggling neighbors, thereby establishing a system of obligations that will save you in bad time - saved funds can be stolen, but debts can't). Meanwhile, a Lunar-counting system will work best when the PCs are more of the "adventurers" type, where they either live fully off of their adventuring, or at least where the income from adventuring makes up a large part of their economy. Regular costs of living, as well as shopping for improved arms and armor, new spirit magic, and training will consume the strictly limited money, and force them into new adventures. (By the way, this answers the question of why training is so incredibly expensive in RQ - it's supposed to be a money sink!)

The point is that this was quickly errata:ed into training instead being a side activity that you could perform apart from full-time work and part-time adventuring (and cult time), merely consuming your remaining free time, so the question in the OP is ”but what if I actually train full time rather than just in my free time?”

This should work, but the tricky bit is how to convert looted treasure into ”credit rating” values. Although I’m sure there are solutions out there already - for instance, if you earn loot, you could either spend it for some expensive one-off item(s), or invest/convert into a stronger base economy, i.e. the credit rating (if the loot is cattle, the only thing you have to do is keep them).

I replaced training in the rules with the following: 1. If you take some time off from work, you can put one (or more, depending on how much) of your seasonal experience ticks into skills not in your cult/occupation. 2. If you have a decent or better teacher, you get a bonus to your skill check roll (there should be a teaching skill, but since there isn’t, just use the communication bonus).

Little wonder the Praxians think they're freakish! Maybe zebras don't, which is why they're alright?

And originally, they laid eggs.

I think the identification of The Lady of the Wild with Orogeria is questionable, but that’s never stopped anyone…

Isn’t that exactly what they need? It’s external logic that’s optional.

Oh, I was thinking the former as I wrote the post - I'm certain both that this has happened and that there are stories about how poorly it goes (in order to make parents agree to the social norm of killing them). The second, not so much (I think it lessens it if Chaos is something you can just live with), although I could instead see the story of getting tainted and having to hurry against all odds to get it cleansed before it corrupts you (this is possible but super difficult, it seems), or seeking a glorious death in battle to spare your clan from your monstrosity. I still think the norm is Chaos = Kill, and for good reasons!

I think a distinction should be drawn between God-Talkers on one side (as they mostly support themselves and it’s not a drain on the clan if you allow people who can support it to get the rank), and ”full” Rune-levels like Priests and Rune-lords who have to be supported from the scarce resources available for specialists. If we go with the common system of temples to Orlanth, Ernalda and some third cult, you will need a minimum of three full Rune-levels, possibly up to the double, and with some (a handful?) God-talkers thrown in for good measure (among both thanes and well-off Free men and women). Being a God-talker isn’t a massive deal in the RQG rules, after all (the way it was in RQ3).

I’m not sure what an ”awakened Moon rune” means in an RQ context (in HQ, it would presumably mean at least having a Moon rune keyword (and probably being part way to Sevening), which means you’re using Moon-based magic - compare with how in tCS your initiation can get hijacked by Cacodemon). The games model the world in different ways, and it reasonably can’t be just having a rating in the Moon rune in RQ - The World Is Made Of Everything, so even a staunch traditionalist could hardly argue (within the RQ context where Moon is a proper Rune, rather than a debatable one as in HQ) that the mere presence of Moon is an abomination (the way a Chaos rune would be). I can’t imagine anyone making a huge fuss about a moderate elemental Rune rating, whether it’s Moon among the Orlanthi or a Yelmalion having some percentage in Darkness. Perhaps not ideal, but it’s far too common to do anything about. Pethaps it’s Illumination, assuming you somehow picked it up during initiation and it’s detectable. Perhaps it’s a Moon rune of 80+%, something that would be rare coming straight out of Initiation. I’m not sure - it may not even have an analogue. The closest thing to the HQ interpretation would be if you somehow emerged from initiation with access to Lunar magic, but that’s not how the system usually works. And yeah, I totally believe that people born with or coming out of initiation with a Chaos rune get killed then and there, even if they haven’t done anything wrong. With or without Storm Bulls present.

Possibly your RQG Household Guardian counts?

One cold wind I could potentially see is what we call ”blowing needles” here, when a strong wind picks up ice crystals and blows them around in a painful manner. Not nearly as bad as a sandstorm, but same basic idea.

And a nice, dry, flowy hair.

Agree, you can see this in the Four Winds of Pent. It's easy to see how this could be associated with the fertility aspect, too.

Storm Bull is associated with the Desert Wind, which makes sense within the Dragon Pass/Prax/Wastes area (and even Pent, where he's the South Rage Wind, as it borders on the Wastes to the south). But presumably he's not identified with desert winds in areas where he's still worshiped but there are hundreds or thousands of miles to the nearest desert (like Fronela or the Pelorian highlands), because that myth wouldn't carry a lot of immediacy. So what do you think he is associated with there? A destructive wind surely, but blizzards and hailstorms are probably already taken by the Winter/Cold gods. Whirlwinds? A biting North Wind?

Is this writing for a forthcoming product?

I like how this is a home-grown crisis, with their own decisions and culture now playing out the logic.

I believe the point is that TC really would love to give himself over to the Land, but he knows what will happen in the real world if he lets up his self-discipline - he will get sloppy with his medical condition, and then he will rot away. So he has to distance himself, and he does it by being an asshole, but in turn he hates himself for that. I mean, it’s not any less whiny because of it, but he kinda has his reasons.

Likely both pull from Nietzsche's distinction between the Apollonian and the Dionysian.

Thomas Covenant needs to be played by a player who really doesn’t want to be there and adamantly rejects the entire premise of the game.

I mean, just ask them!

I think there was a small amount of rep involved and a bonus to the Income roll. Also, since she managed to crit two public Worship (Ernalda) rolls in a row when arriving in the new community on top of this and she's just loaded with Rune Points and helps out with these giant Bless Crop spells for the neighbours, a lot of people are convinced she's particularly holy and are pushing for a priestesshood for her.

Whenever the text says that someone in Glorantha "revealed" something about the mythology, it's a euphemism for "made stuff up and got people to agree".