Richard S.

Ah, oops, I misread that

I believe it's supposed to be Draconic, given his mastery of dragon powers (dragontooth runners, EWF banner, summoning dragons to tear down the moon, etc.) and the "a dragon whispered hot words of blood and gold" line. I don't know if it's been explicitly stated as such, but I think it's the most likely.

Dinner?

Oh this is going to be fun Edit: I'd better see at least one of these things professionally recorded for someone's entry: http://etyries.albionsoft.com/etyries.com/songbook/index.html

KoS is a propaganda piece? Maybe it is, and I just didn't get the right message out of it, but what I read was a scholarly attempt to figure out who Argrath actually was and what he actually did. Of course, it was colored by the fact the Argrath is a major if not the cultural hero of the Harshax's people, but I saw it as primarily a scholarly work with opinions on whether Argrath were good or bad being secondary. Now, of course it called him out as a hero, but in Glorantha, hero ≠ good guy, hero = powerful guy.

Not sure if this has been mentioned already, but I think Argrath is a "hero" in the same sense that Paul Atreides or or Leto II are heroes. They are a necessity for ensuring the survival of humanity (or life in general for Argrath), but are terrible, flawed people who cause unimaginable suffering in the pursuit of their goals. In the grand scheme of things, it turns out to be far better than the alternative (though that's impossible for pretty much anyone in-world to actually see, including the "heroes"), but they were not good people. The ends justify the means, taken to an extreme.

This seems to say differently, as well as imply that inscriptions function like normal enchantments aside from the restrictions.

Ah, yeah! The basic idea is that the dungeon is divided into distinct levels of increasing difficulty, and at the start of each level the players would each do a simple contest with their "role" keyword (scout, guard, leader, healer, scholar, etc.) against a difficulty based on how deep they are. If you win, good job everything's chill. If you crit, you find something useful or valuable (lingering benefit). If you fail, something goes wrong - roll on a table based on your role, modified in some way by the difficulty somehow. When something goes wrong, you "zoom in" on the party and play to resolve it, which can have either good or bad consequences. On a fumble... I haven't thought about that yet, probably something to do with automatic lingering penalties. It's not terribly fleshed out yet, but that's the gist of it. I'm also thinking of giving each role a designated relationship ability, like a contact for the leader that they can use to get supplies from the surface, or some guard retainers to help deal with monsters and the like.

I raise you Argrath Arkat

I think Mastery will be a Rune we can gain % in eventually, but primarily through HeroQuesting, as nowadays it's being interpreted more as the "Hero" rune than the "Ruler" rune, which is why Yelm is missing it while Orlanth keeps it.

From what the designers have said, knowing sorcery, specifically techniques I believe, is the equivalent of having the Law rune. It's not one that people gain percentiles in.

I ain't anyone in authority, but I'm gonna ask y'all to please take your knives and arguments to a private message or at least another topic. This is getting increasingly away from the point and, from the sounds of things, frustrating for all involved. If you aren't directly addressing the question of Glorantha's mortality rate then take it elsewhere - despite its similar sound, morality is an entirely separate issue. Edit: another thing - this is a fucking fantasy world that exists entirely within our imagination and has no bearing on our actual lives. Don't get so riled up over what other people think of things in it, it doesn't matter.

Non Glorantha QW will definitely be welcome, though I would like Glorantha stuff eventually. Personally, I've been making some notes on how to apply the QW system to dungeon crawling and I'm liking it so far. It's really an incredibly flexible engine, moreso than even Fate or PbtA imo.

Popping in here to say that the mortality rate rate is definitely higher sheerly because of how many of us died trying to increase our weapon skills in RQ2.

Hello? Thanatari Inc.? Yes, I need something erased from my mind immediately.

Argrath is not, or maybe was never, a real person. Rather, he is best compared to a force of nature - a storm, so to speak, unstoppable and unmerciful, a perfect agent for the cosmic order worse than Arkat himself. Argrath's end goals will be accomplished because they are not his own, they are the will of creation itself, or perhaps something beyond creation, something eternal and endlessly, cyclically, devouring itself to drive the wheel of history. Arkat may have betrayed humanity for the men of darkness, but they were still men. Argrath, though, betrayed humanity for something pre-human, or even, in a sense, pre-dark. Many may try to fight it, but in the end all we can do is hope the destroyer, the devil's devil, passes us by.

Real world. Ya know, that weird round blue hell at the bottom of the underworld? It scares me...

Maybe someone should start a "Smart Theories" thread at this rate, or at least a "Reasonable Theories" one...

AFAIK, yes it is easier to learn Rune magic, but I would argue that POW is a rarer and more precious commodity than coin for paying for magic. I would probably rule, however, that you can only gain 1 RP per major holy day, but I don't think there's any restriction like that RAW. If you're fine with players having a lot of Rune magic up front, go for it. If not, maybe put in a holy day restriction or a monetary cost.

Does this mean you'll start selling PV again in the near future?

Related to this, what's the status on the actual core rulebook? Should b we expect it soon or more around 2021?

That ain't even a dumb theory. Based on Argrath's LBQ in KoS, it allows you to bring back whatever the celestial court can reach.

The God-Egg was, as the dragonewts claimed, a True Dragon egg, and Nysalor was originally a draconic being who had it suppressed by the council to further separate from the dragonewts. Of course, you can't really kill a dragon, and that's why his curse on the dragonewts didn't work - his dragon mind rose up to eat it in a draconically circular fashion. Similarly, all forms of illumination ultimately derive from the draconic origin of the universe, Ouroboros. I may also believe that dragons are the only things that have everything "right" and are in some way connected to and partially responsible for everything.

You can't tell me what to do! I lost my mind 5 years ago, the Arkat chapters no longer threaten me!

Sky is Purity and often connected to Truth, it could be displaying the "true forms" of things on the surface or their "essence" or whatever The Sun is also associated with Life and Immortality - perhaps the things in the Sky are the immortal portions of everything, while those in the Underworld are the dead portions of everything. The Middle World is the world of both life and death, where everything is stuck inbetween.