Richard S.

Are there plans to allow gamemasters to add custom content like new homelands, cults, and spells?

The individual Thunder Brother sub/cults of the HW/HQ1 era are the air god equivalent of Grain Goddesses. Independent, regular storms like Destor, Finovan, Daylanus, Hedkoranth, and Helamakt can be initiated to without technically joining Orlanth (though Orlanthi always count as initiates of these storms, of course). They act for most intents and purposes like weaker versions of Orlanth Adventurous or Orlanth Thunderous, depending on whether they're primarily a windstorm or a thunderstorm. Unfortunately, Thunder Brothers can only be contacted through worship when physically present, which is a real problem given their natural unpredictability, but some areas at least one of them is regular enough to support a small cult (e.g. Pelanda and Doburdun).

I like most of your ability ideas, though with the ease at which Rightness can be lost or gained it might be a headache to track all your modifiers. You did also leave out the one ability we do have confirmed for zzaburi: their ability to store MP in the spirit world (1 RIGHT = 1 MP? Or maybe 1D10 in the spirit of enchantments). I'm not sure how I feel about your idea of White Wizards being Dayzatari - I know there's been reams of conversation on the place of theism in Malkionism, but I think the zzaburi of all people should have no part in it. Personally, I think I'm going to ditch Rightness altogether from my own west (can you ditch something that technically doesn't exist yet?). I think that giving caste restrictions having magical consequences not caused by human action goes against the Malkioni idea that humans can exist without external magical aid. Instead, I'm ruling it that most Brithini or Brithini-derived spells can only affect people who are obedient to caste law (the level of obedience can vary with the spell), and in return give significantly improved benefits over standard sorcery like we see in the core book. "Bless the Fields of Dromal", for instance, probably doesn't work on fields not being tended by the most righteous of dronars, but if it is then that field might see yields rivaling those of Esrolia. Of course, this leads to the whole new headache of tracking exactly which caste laws the characters have kept, broken, returned to, etc...

I've now got strong evidence that New Pelorian probably has some roots in a "cursive" form of the Sacred Alphabet, developed by scribes whose wrists were getting damn tired from having to make all those straight lines and perfect corners. Further research pending until my hands start to uncramp.

Deezola does have one very important power of sovereignty - her cult has complete independence from Yelm's, which is no small feat among Pelorian earth goddesses. Edit: I guess it's not total independence, considering that the cult technically does report to the high priest of Yelm. But it's pretty damn close.

Jakaleel by default can only control small darkness elementals. Zorak Zoran gives her the ability to control any size of shade.

Page 31, Shield is included in the list of rune magic available to Seven Mothers associates. Hwarin Dalthippa's associate description only grants Shield to chief/high priests. Either Shield should be removed from the rune magic section, or the restriction on who can learn it should be removed, depending on what was intended.

Found some copies on shelves at my LGS today, a little earlier than scheduled.

For a bit of a mechanical preview, the rune spells for each cult have been added to the alphabetical lists on the Well. https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/catalogue/publishers/chaosium/cha4034-the-red-book-of-magic/rune-magic-by-cult-and-associate-cult/

Foundry VTT is what I use, and it's excellent. There is a one-time $50 to use the software, but it's been very much worth it. The Runequest module is unofficial, but it includes all the material from the official wiki so character building at least is a bit easier.

Some of you may remember a while ago I asked some questions related to starting a campaign in Seshnela. While that unfortunately did die, we managed to get a few adventures in and I got some background notes written up which I'm now trying to clean up and expand into something a little more useful. Starting with some rather broad-stroke stuff on cults, most of which probably won't seem too unusual to anyone on here, I'm trying out using a blog to post my notes on: http://abidingpamphlet.blogspot.com/2024/02/malkioni-cults-and-characters.html Any observations or ideas of your own or feedback on my ideas is appreciated. I'm pretty unused to writing longer posts like the above, so any general writing advice would also be welcome. Thanks!

It's been a few weeks but I just want to say thanks to everyone for your advice and encouragement. I'll admit that I haven't actually gotten started with anything, but the hill definitely look a little less steep now. Thank you.

Spirit cults can theoretically teach any spirit magic spell, since their priests are shamans. Rune cults have lists of spirit magic not because they are unique in knowing them, but because those are the only ones their priests usually know and can pass on. Some spirits cults may definitely prefer certain spirit magic spells, and make these more accessible to worshipers, but spirit magic itself is not bound up in cults like Rune magic is - anyone can learn any spell, as long as they can find a teacher. It's also possible that the spirit worshiped by the cult itself knows and can teach spirit magic, or is at least closely connected to other spell spirits, which saves the shaman a trip to find those spells elsewhere. At your discretion, the spirit may be able to teach these spells itself without the shaman as an intermediary - either during holy day ceremonies or in "friendly" spirit combat - which is much faster than the week required by a mortal teacher. I love small spell variations like this. We know that each spirit magic spell is really hundreds of unique charms that all just have similar effects, so it makes sense for there to occasionally be small differences.

That's how it works, yes. Praxians even prefer to eat the beasts of other tribes before their own. They're named for the beast they ride, not because it's the only one they use.

Dumb Theory: the Dara Happan Sacred Alphabet is written top to bottom, left to right - i.e. in columns instead of rows. Dumb Reason: solely because I've been using it to write private notes recently and it feels more comfortable that way (which of course means those stuffy Buseri probably do it the other way). I also think it looks nicer in columns.