Richard S.

56 minutes ago, Jose said:

About geographic limits to magic, I hope that is explained in the cults book. I thought that you could access the God plane from anywhere in Glorantha and if you can access the God plane then you can  access the magic. Is not the God plane myths the source of rune magic? 

The god is the source of the magic, the myths are the pathway. They can't provide magic where they don't have influence, like how Lunar Magic is weakened when the moon is dark (except within the glowline of course) and the Windstop prevented Orlanth's magic from being used. Pavis, as a city god, only has power within Old and New Pavis.

Common spell access is a per-cult thing, there's no absolute general rule. Generally it's only minor cults that suffer from it, but CA does miss out on Warding and Eurmal only provides Divination, Extension, and Multispell. Oakfed and Black Fang both have severely truncated lists, being spirit cults.

55 minutes ago, Ian Thomson said:

Looking at the notes on the Jonstown Compendium, it says that HeroQuest stats are permitted in Jonstown publications. I had thought that I heard the exact opposite. That they are not permitted.

Can someone clarify this for me please. A lot of the material in the later Companions had full HQ stats in, and if this is possible to be used, then what I will probably do is produce separate supplements for each volume, containing HQ conversion notes.

As much as I wasn't a huge fan of the system, the work has already been done, and it would be crazy to just throw it away if it's permissible. Potentially I guess I could just include it in the publications, but that would ramp up the page-count and probably be useless to most people. How popular is HQ these days?

HQ - or QuestWorlds as it's known nowadays - has mostly been overshadowed by RQG from what I've seen (though that may change once we get actual Glorantha material for QW, since it's just a generic SRD now). Fortunately due to how the system currently works, you don't need any stats provided to run anything with it, the narrator and players determine target numbers and abilities during play.

TLDR, there's no need to add anything to the Companion to use it with HQG/QW.

9 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Except when it is... 

Your Yelmalian who can't use Fire suddenly joins a Fire cult at full percentage. Or a Valind worshipper joins a Darkness cult.

(FWIW, I'm not a fan of this Fire/Sky combination either)

I don't see an issue with either of those. Yelmalians are usually forbidden certain fire spells, sure, but the power that Light spells ultimately derive from has always been Fire/Sky. Same with Cold and Dark - they aren't separate powers, Valind is just described with Cold to make it more explicit that he doesn't provide powers over Shadow.

I'm a sucker for old-school covers so I really like the first version

28 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

Huh, good point... maybe it's better to ignore or complement the correction by keeping Storm Bull as a possible donor (Beast Rune in common). It seems just as appropriate that Eirithia gets protection from her husband than from her son.

I mean Storm Bull doesn't really have it to give in the first place, since he only has it as an associate of Orlanth.

Cold, light, heat, dark earth, and all those others are just more specific versions of core runes anyways, so I don't think it matters too much if Valind is listed air/dark instead of air/cold, among other examples. There's very little practical difference between "Yelmalio has the Light rune" and "Yelmalio has Light powers from the Fire rune".

I'd use the runes of the cult you're getting the spell from, so shield from orlanth would use air or movement

16 minutes ago, Agentorange said:

Sorry, that's me not being very clear in what I was trying to say. I'll try and rephrase: would she be worshipped in her own right in Esrolia as one of the 10,000 goddesses quite apart from any Lunar association that there might be. Would there be a particularly independent Esrolian version of Etyries worship ?

I do definately think she'd be a sub cult of Issaries with shrines of her own, but wondered if it might go further than that given the intensely matriarchal and female centred nature of Esrolia.

The "10,000 goddesses" are specifically the earth goddesses found in Esrolia, not just female deities in general. The primary "hat" of Esrolia is earth worship, not female dominance. It just happens that earth worship is already dominated by women.

Etyries can't exist outside of Lunar influence because her entire nature is as one of the Lunar immortals. She became a god within time by following the teaching of the Red Goddess, and so is inextricably tied to her empire.

Etyries is the goddess of the Lunar Empire's traders, she's not just a female version of Issaries. Her cult has very little power outside places where the empire has a foothold. And Issaries isn't just the Sartarite trade god, he is the god of trade and communication, worshiped across the lozenge by many different peoples.

Issaries worshipers in no way have to be male, any more so than Lankhor Mhy or Chalana Arroy worshipers do. Orlanth and Ernalda are the only gods in the Orlanthi pantheon with a gender bias, unless you count LM's beard requirement (which is perfectly satisfied by a fake beard).

Ironically, I think Esrolia might actually have less female Issaries than elsewhere, since the earth goddesses have so much more influence. If you want to be anything in Esrolian society your best bet is to join one of their cults.

Also, while Esrolia is a matriarchy, that doesn't mean that women are automatically favored in everything, it just means that the ruling class is made up of women, and more specifically that the ruling class is made up of mothers and grandmothers. Everything else is pretty similar to how Orlanthi elsewhere do things, which if you take a look you'll find is actually fairly equal between the sexes.

13 hours ago, AlHazred said:

 

I think you're thinking of Heroquest 1e, 2e got rid of common religions and talents and all that mess.

In RQG terms I think they'd just be small Rune cults, like the Sun Dragon's cult or the Path of Immanent Mastery.

4 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

I personally have the thought that in RQG terms, Draconism means that you would replace your Beast rune with a Dragon rune, so that you now have a Man/Dragon duality instead.

I don't think any runes should be replaced; your natural impulses are always there, draconic mysticism just gradually teaches how to ignore them. I think I'd have prospective draconics take Dragonewt as a completely separate rune, but working kind of like the Illumination skill: initially it's just a chance for you to become Illuminated (aka awakening your Draconic Consciousness), but it can be used to learn and use dragon powers after that happens.

5 hours ago, Ian Thomson said:

Who did this map? I would love a little help from someone who can do maps like this! 🙂

Also (my reason for checking out this thread) I remember ages ago seeking a (fan-created?) write-up of Orlantha Dragonfriend worship

Before I sit down to write this myself for P&BRC_DC_Vol02 (since the cult is present in Pavis City) I thought I'd check and see if there were any good sources already around?

There was a fanmade HW version I saw once, and of course mongoose had their own take, but personally I don't think Orlanth Dragonfriend should really be a cult of its own, just a subcult. If I were to write it up for my campaign I'd just make it a subcult of Orlanth Adventurous, not providing any magic on its own but teaching Auld Wyrmish and offering a chance at unlocking your draconic consciousness, essentially being a gateway to the actual mystical paths rather than one itself.

From what Jeff's said, it seems to me that most EWF citizens just followed their old religions and gave some worship to the council on the side. Comparatively few actually engaged in draconic or other mystical stuff. And dragon magics weren't the only thing in the EWF either, Pavis and Delecti are both examples of completely non-draconic projects.

I don't think Orlanth Dragonfriend is present in modern-day Pavis unless Argrath or the players somehow resurrect it. The only draconic cult left in the region is the Sun Dragon, and that's only because of its sole worshipper Windwhistler.

Edit: I think the HW Dragonfriend cult I was thinking of was on Wesley Quadros' Glorantha site, but it's been taken down.

2 hours ago, AndreJarosch said:

Aldrami are vegetarians. 
Aldrami bodies are plant matter. 
I am sure there are conflicts between different Aldryami groups/forests (now or in the past). 
Would an Aldryami eat the corpse of an other Aldryami?
Would an Aldryami KILL an enemy Aldryami for food?
 

Probably not. An Aldryami eating plants is no more cannibalistic than a human eating meat.

I think it's far more specific than that. You can't boil down whether or not a god can or can't provide a specific spell to a few bulletpoints, it all depends on whether the action the spell represents is mythologically significant for them. Humakt has Truesword because, well, he has the True Sword, Death. Yanafal Tarnils has Truesword because he won a piece of Death from Humakt in a duel on his way to godhood. Babesteer Gor and Zorak Zoran both match your specifications to the letter, but neither provide a True weapon.

3 hours ago, Ian Thomson said:

 

I'm not familiar with your old Pavis material, but the new book Chaosium is doing will be set after Argrath takes the city so I think as long as your stuff is set during the Lunar occupation like in P&BR it'll probably fit in well enough.

I feel like an undead with MP but no POW (including vampires) is more akin to a magic point container, and it doesn't let spirits seriously affect them or vice versa.

IMO, if they're undead made by binding a spirit into a corpse, they can be spirit combatted. Strictly animated or otherwise soulless undead can't be, they have little to no presence on the spirit plane.

After a bit of thinking, some more thoughts on how I'd personally rule summoning ancestors:

1. The spell "Summon Ancestors" can't randomly drop a god or demigod on you, usually. Maybe in the case of a critical casting or other magic schenanigans it'd have a chance but it nearly always just picks a "normal" ancestor from the general ancestral host, one closer to what the caster is.

2. For Summon Specific Ancestor it's not enough to just know a name, you need to know the entire line between you and your target, thus making accurate genealogies even more precious. You might know you have a Thunder Brother ancestor, but you also need to know the right path to send the spell seeking down.

3. Specific summoning truly magical beings like spirits or demigods is going to be harder, like -25% or -50% depending on the individual ancestor. An actual god might require a special or critical success if possible at all.

1 minute ago, Ironwall said:

So you can with summon specific ancestor but what about summon ancestor. Could it still be from that far back.

Yes, but since its random it's entirely at the discretion of the GM.

Yep, though I think you'll usually need a Summon Specific Ancestor to get them. That's why Uz and Talars, among others, are fanatic about genealogy: they have literal gods for ancestors, so its important to know who they are and what their connection to you is so you can call on them when necessary.

Yes. It's less common than worshiping them as a collective, but they all have their own cults. Yanafal and Irrippi are essentially just Humakt and Lankhor Mhy stand-ins with some moon spells I believe, and I think Deezola might be similar to Ernalda's cult in several respects. Jakaleel has her lunar spirit traditions, Danfive Xaron is a cult for rehabilitating criminals, and Teelo Nori doesn't have much of a cult of her own but is the basis for some charity organizations I think.

I think Thed and Mallia's cults are technically just large spirit cults. The line between rune cult and spirit cult is more than a little hazy.

I was reading through Griffin Mountain and the way the elves and dwarves are described in the encounters section struck me as kind of odd, given how we seem to look at all the elder races nowadays. They feel much closer to humans, in terms of personality and background, and there's a whole lot of breaking what are now racial taboos going on, yet they seem to be intended as just usual members of their species. Hell even the dragonewts are described in a less alien light, just a weird one.

Personally I do like this, since it is nice to see elder races other than trolls presented in a not-so-weird light, but I'd like to know what others think of it. Also I'm curious whether y'all think people like Rockheart and Strongbark's parties could still fit in current canon. I know my Glorantha has some room for non-hereticapostate dwarves who play chess and go on adventures, or elves who join troupes or were raised by Balazarings, but it's interesting to see how y'all deal with this sort of stuff.

The survival covenant myth isn't about how humans and animals became different, it's about how praxian riding beasts and praxian people became different. The separation of human and animal is a thing from much further back, likely the middle to late green age as things were starting to diversify, and a few of the Hsunchen tribes are probably the only people to give it much thought.