Richard S.

Air, beast, chaos, disorder, earth, fertility, cold, harmony, infinity. Man, luck, law, mastery, dragonewt, light, plant, moon, magic. Spirit, communication, stasis, fire/sky, water, dragon, truth, undeath/hunger, death. Movement, undeath/hunger, metal, illusion, shadow, heat, fate, darkness. I labled two of them undeath/hunger because I'm not sure which is which, though the first one is now used for both (hunger is like a vampire's desire for blood or a ghoul's desire for flesh, not just a rumbling stomach). Metal and the second undeath/hunger are both unused, I'm pretty sure they were leftovers from MRQ or HQ1 when that font was made.

I think the only picture we have of them is from Anaxial's Roster. Personally I think they'd be a little more human, without as much fins and scales, but probably still pretty hairless and with webbed digits.

If it's alright for me to ask, why did you give him fire powers in SKoH? I was doing some research the other day and was interested to see that that's the only Elmal writeup where he has a significant association with fire. At the time did you just think that the Heortlings needed a native god with fire powers who wasn't a Lowfire? Or was there another reason?

Two small corrections to that: one, it was technically a Hero Wars writeup but that's a minor point; two, "An initiate can improvise any named feat in the affinity (see page 120) as an active ability with a –10 penalty (–5 if he has concentrated his magic use), but can never cement such use, and cannot learn these feats as abilities unless he becomes a devotee." (HQ:RiG, pg. 118). Initiates could use feats directly, they just suffered a penalty. They also weren't limited to just the listed feats, they could improvise - the named feats were just suggestions. I understand your point I think, though I also think you may be overthinking it 😛

Charisma isn't just sociability, it's also a character's force of personality and "presence", the ability to get people to pay attention and listen to you. That perfectly ties into spirit magic imo, which is based on the character exerting their will on the spirits around them. "CHA is the measure of leadership and strength of personality. This is the ability to say “Follow me!” and find oneself leading a charge." RQG pg. 52

Ooh! Useful and flavorful, I like it.

It doesn't? Whoops, I think I was remembering City Harmony or something else similar. It does say you need to overcome the target's POW on the resistance table, which again pretty much makes the Bat immune.

It doesn't work on Rune levels, and I'd hazard a guess that the Bat is far above that rank

Er, apologies for the necromancy, but could you maybe give us some idea of what Bind Wind does? I'm assuming it'll allow the binding of Air elementals or similar, so the shaman can have a coterie of them following him around all the time instead of constantly having to summon new ones.

Why would something like "Run Over Treetops" be an outlandish or weird ability? Sounds like a perfect breakout from Movement to me.

No, QW is a brand new edition of HQ, not just an OGL version. There's a new core book coming soon to supercede the HQ2 one.

Yes. What was previously HeroQuest has now been updated and released as Questworlds, primarily to avoid confusion with the HeroQuest board game if I understand correctly. It's an OGL system, using a (far better) variation of the one Chaosium used for the recent BRP SRD, and the QW SRD is available for free if you want to check out the changes (to start, AP contests are back and character growth has been completely revamped). There's also a new core rulebook in the pipeline, with examples and art and stuff, which hopefully should be out soon, along with three very unique genre packs.

I think that was an early Undeath rune

I'm assuming your answer is basically the same as the current one? Edit: whoops didn't see you'd posted a link.

And charisma is selling a tomato-based fruit salad!

So basically you can give anyone POW as a sacrifice? So I could sacrifice to a beggar down the street and he'd get a tiny otherworld presence without having to do anything himself? Also, does the POW sacrificed go directly to the god or does it hang in their "link" to the middle world, strengthening the connection but not necessarily giving the god more POW themselves. The way I've previously interpreted/run it, gods basically add the POW sacrificed to their own POW stat, which over time gives them a phenomenal amount of renewable MPs which they use to cast huge spells on the behalf of the worshipper, which we call Rune magic, though to the god it's more like sorcery and each casting takes a long time and a buttload of MP from them, though as the god is unbound by time it doesn't seem to take that long for the worshipper. This is probably a really gamey response but it made sense in my head.

Well in RQ2 Shield was a generic spell that everyone got. I'm not sure if that held true for RQ3, but I know Yelmalio at least had it. I think the biggest problem now is because of the increased access to Rune magic. Now players are relying more on it, since they don't have to wait until Rune Priest status to get it as a renewable resource, and so gods with suboptimal spell selections stand out more. And if we're talking RQ2, there is one more thing in that the Sunspear he got from Yelm was available not just to the high priest but the Light Keeper, Light Captain, and regular priests serving under the Light Captain, so players could get access to it potentially. I doubt that's a reason for the upset however.

Why was this not in the core?

Who's that middle guy with the dragon stuff? An EWF soldier? Some dragon people from the west I don't know about?

Yelmalio does have Shield as of GaGoG/CoG/whatever they're calling it now. Associate spell from Yelm. Personally, I think Morale would be better for him than Truespear, as a god of soldiers.

Possibly because the spells are her gifts in exchange for the husband's protection? It wasn't a spell-for-spell relationship she had with them, it was a "I'll give you my gifts and you personally defend me". I'd imagine in the middle world that'd mean that her cult is allied with all of her husbands' cults and can call on their members for protection, even if they don't necessarily grant any direct magic.

What are some ideas for interesting campaigns that y'all have had, especially ones that you have or would like to run? Something different from the standards like "you're adventurers in the Big Rubble out to get rich" or "you're a member of clan X of tribe Y, deal with clan issues like stolen cows and raids". Here's a few of my own: "You are all former Lunar slaves who are on the run up into Balazar, where you will need to rebuild your life from the ground up." "New recruits to the Lunar Provincial Army, your regiment was destroyed in the Battle of Heroes and now you need to either escape on your own back to the empire or try and survive among the Sartar barbarians." (thinking of actually using this for a game soon) "Hired in Nochet by a rich merchant captain to act as guards or just an extra pair of hands, the Opening rites went wrong somewhere during your voyage and now the rest of you, with little sailing knowledge, have been shipwrecked on the other side of the world, Pamaltela. Again, you need to either find a way home, or find a way to survive in a totally alien world." (I think I may have a theme with the players getting stuck in unfamiliar circumstances, I need to get more creative...)

Depending on the tradition, you can be a part of a society without having the spirit rune - I believe Hsunchen can use beast and Kolati can use air - but generally the spirit rune is what allows you to access the spirit world and interact with spirits. You can still use charms and stuff without it, and many rune cultists and even some sorcerers use them, but you can't really progress towards shamanhood. Sorcery is easier to have without the Law rune, since you can take a Grimoire as a standalone or even breakout from another source, like a community or moon rune, but it's recommended to break them out from the law rune if you're specializing since any grimoire or spell that you get later can be hung off of it as well.

He does have Shield according to Jeff, as an associate spell from Yelm. For some reason though it's not in the core, which is frustrating. He has pretty much the same stuff he had back in RQ2 and 3, which was fine because of how limited rune magic was, but now having such weak spells means he's pretty much unviable as a PC choice if you want to perform on the same level as initiates of the other fighter gods. His only decently good spell that's his own is Sunbright, and only then if your enemy's using darkness elementals or the troll types that don't like sunlight. I would love to give him truespear and/or sureshot. We know that he didn't lose his spear in the darkness, so his followers being unable to use it is frustrating.

Does this mean that any future HQG material will align with RQG canon?