Akhôrahil

Blue Book of Zzabur

Written by Zzabur himself in True Script, this book is a first-hand record of creation, inscribed upon the flayed, yet still-living skins of his ancient foes. The Blue Book requires great labor and study even to read; the intellect must be attuned through rigorous logical self-discipline (Solace) and other strictures so that it is not annihilated by the knowledge contained within the book. This book is the core source text for all zzaburi wizardry. No complete copy exists in the world today.

https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/gloranthan-documents/glorantha-2/history-of-malkioni-thought-brithini-and-first-age/

4 hours ago, g33k said:

But AFAIK Troll society, broadly, accords few or no rights to trollkin, whether "Value" or "Superior" or any other category.

If you're enlo, you're forever a 3rd-class citizen... maybe a more valuable/useful one than most, but still 3rd-class.  You will never lead Uz warparties, Uz tribes... only other enlo (and best not lead them too well, or you're likely to be seen as the serpents-head to be removed lest you foment rebellion).

Sometimes, that's just what I'd be looking for.
Sometimes, I'd be looking for something different from that.

The PCs in my group were granted a (superior) trollkin, and they rolled up his stats. It turned out the trollkin had 18 in INT, and everyone decided he had been smart enough to hide that. 

3 minutes ago, Ironwall said:

What are the side effects? I've always wondered why tapping chaos would be considered immoral 

They gain various chaos features and mutations because of the tainted energies.

You could also treat it as a Community, even if it doesn't include any people apart from the PCs.

On 10/22/2023 at 2:03 AM, Joerg said:

One possible reason why the dual purpose in-game-aid and XP may have been removed is that this rewards the players who spend less XP on the narrative rather than the ones who spend their XP on the narrative but then having no reward left.

Agree, that's a terrible design for the reasons you mention (Tribe 8 first edition did the same thing). The good fix is making it dual-purpose - if you spend a Hero Point for success it also gets spent as XP on that ability only.

12 hours ago, Tindalos said:

Page 92 of the Guide mentions "Since the Trollkin Curse, trolls have decreed all multiple births are trollkin." So still canonical. 

One potential workaround is that it's possible for trollkin to prove that they were "really" full dark trolls all along, just born as a trollkin. One imagines this is much easier if you actually were part of a dark troll twin birth.

On 10/23/2023 at 12:45 AM, jajagappa said:

Zzabur's Blue Book

Anyone else thinks the full sorcery system should be published as The Blue Book of Magic? 🙂

11 hours ago, bronze said:

Is the Sorcery the most difficult to learn, but potentially the most flexible and powerful magic system?

Yes, but emphasis on "potentially". You will suck for a long, long time, while a Rune Cult initiate can be pretty badass right away.

Lunar Sorcery has traditionally been designed a bit less flexible (as it bases off of Spirit Magic) but much easier to learn and use. Much more PC friendly.

With regards to Earth cults, one possible explanation is that Ernalda's traditional enemy is Nontraya the Taker, who can reasonably be identified with Vivamort, who is associated with Sorcery. 

10 hours ago, bronze said:

Why the Tapping is deemed immoral?

"Do not ruin that which you love" is a commandment in Malkionism. The orthodox interpretation seems to be that you should love Creation (as it's made by the Invisible God and good), and therefore not harm it by tapping. But some sects have workarounds - the Boristi reasonably argue that you shouldn't love Chaos, and therefore feel free - no, duty-bound! - to tap it (this has side effects, as one would expect). The Galvosti didn't think you should love non-Malkioni, and so thought tapping them was fine. Brithini and Vadeli don't care, and tap to their hearts' content, because they're like that.

Rokari at the very least used to allow tapping of animals, because apparently you can't love animals (this seems very Rokari). Not sure if this has been changed in current canon?

15 hours ago, Manunancy said:

With suitable magics (and often even without) eating troublesome problems is a farily common trollish way to get rid of them. I have vague memories of inclduing even iron and some chaos. So unlike our world, in Glorantha, feeding the troll can solve problems 🙂

The party of my PCs include a trollkin. Feeding him chaotic stuff is their go-to way of getting rid of it.

13 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

IIRC, in the Red Cow material some children are born as Ogres? They are killed if discovered or am I remembering incorrectly?

Correct. Their initiation quests get derailed into following Cacodemon. It's a bloodline taint.

You would think ogres would put in even more of an effort to do this kind of thing, introducing their seed into bloodlines.

3 hours ago, Cassius said:

In the chapter devoted to The Yelmalio in the History of the Heortling People, Gbaji, "the Great Liar", is the name of Great Nysalor's ennemy. Then, the name Pelorian Sun worshippers give to Arkat. Gbaji is the name of the Other one.

Something similar is in Lords of Terror, in an Elven source.

(I also love how the disaffected youth of Yuthuppa are doing Gbaji graffiti. 🙂 )

"Arkat fought Nysalor, and Gbaji won."

17 hours ago, g33k said:

Generally  Earth-y, IIRC, not specifically or uniquely Ernalda.

It at least used to be the case that Entra the Sow Mother was a part of Ernalda.

On 4/8/2023 at 8:52 PM, Bren said:

If you had said, epicureans instead of "Epicurean philosophers" I would have assumed the common definition. Epicurean philosophers get a bad rap in the modern world.

"Do you like a nice garden? Do you enjoy the company of friends? Do you believe the world is made of tiny particles, which you call 'atoms'? Do you trust the evidence of your senses? Do you find politics tiresome, and raise a skeptical eyebrow at those who live in fear of God?

If your answer to these questions is 'yes', you might want to consider becoming an Epicurean."
—History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps podcast

I don't know what "accurate" even means in this context. What is it that you test the myth's correspondence against?

2 hours ago, Richard S. said:

The word saint is basically unused now, since there's been a lot of effort to distance the Malkioni from the old allegories to real-world monotheist religions and their ideas of sainthood.

Less common name for Ascended Masters, as per the Guide. Probably most often seen for Saint Xemela?

There is also a Saint City on the Red Moon, and the Hideous Saints of the World of Losers movement.

2 hours ago, bronze said:

A world where everybusybody is a superhero! 😛

”…everyone can be superheroes. Everyone can be super! And when everyone's super...

[laughs maniacally] 

...no one will be.”

Secrets of Dorastor has the Giant King of Neverdead, as well as some other giants.

9 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

We'll almost certainly get more godtime lore in the form of myths, and we'll eventually get the heroquesting rules to expand on those, but we're not going to see something like "the society of the Vingkotlings" or "adventures in the Artmali empire". The godtime isn't a historical epoch, with definite borders and timelines and events, it's the unknowable story of creation that we tell stories about to explain why things are the way they are.

I don’t know, I mean Six Ages is doing this?

(I agree it won’t be published by Chaosium, who have more than enough to do already.)

We will get a New Artmali Empire during the Hero Wars, as the Artmali slaves rebel. Unfortunately, Chaotic. (Guide p. 562)

You will want to read this:

https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/gloranthan-documents/greg-sez/bluepeople/

Supporting evidence: Yelm the Youth among the young men of the Grazers, not exactly famed for being stationary.

13 hours ago, DocSk said:

I am new to RQG but am enjoying the game so far. However, I am a little stumped as to how underpowered many characters are. Many of my players’ characters are rolling against skills in the 40 to 65 range. Roughly, this means that they fail half the time. Failing some is fun. Failing half the time gets tedious.

So I figured that was what augments were for. Characters could summon the power of a rune to help them in combat. However, as I understand it, they would only be able to use that rune during one combat per session. So it doesn’t seem to be runes, passions, and skills that make the characters more legendary. 
 

What am I doing wrong? Are we making characters wrong (the pregens seem tougher)? Are we using augments incorrectly? 

You're not doing anything wrong, it's working as intended. PCs will tend to have a high percentage is a few core skills (often but not always combat), where you start out at 80+%. But a lot of your second-tier skills will be in the range you suggest, and that's intended. Also, in many cases it's enough if one person in the party makes the roll, and then you will often get a success at team level anyway. In some cases though, you fail and have to find another route. Or you could apply the "fail forwards" concept, where failure doesn't stop the attempt but just gives it negative consequences (you find the book but your enemies realize you're in the library, you climb the mountain but it takes a lot longer, you track your enemy but lose ground to them). 

This edition actually gives you much higher skill percentages than you used to - in RQ2, you would start out in the 30-40% range even in your good skills. 🙂

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

Apologies, this section hasn't had the rules updated, it's all spirit combat. I will review it

This seems like a really good change, especially if it means that Spirit Combat with weapons just means that you make a single Spirit Combat roll at SR12 but can use your weapon for damage. It also makes Spirit Combat a lot nastier for non-Shamans, which can only be a good thing (it niche-protects shamans as being the best at Spirit Combat, which wasn’t always the case before).

RAW is clearly that you attack with weapon skill, as noted above. IMO this has a bad outcome, so I’m all for it getting changed.