Richard S.

Damn guess I'm a spirit worshipper now, time to go and get myself some crucifix charms

You say that until the God Learners use their almighty Runequest Sight™ to prove that the moon rune is just two stasis runes stapled together over a light rune.

It's useful, yes, but incredibly difficult. If you desperately want to resurrect your comrade, just get them to a healer within a week. The lightbringers quest can grant incredible powers beyond simple resurrection - the gods offered Argrath anything in the world, and the cosmos nearly broke when they could not meet his request. Failure is disastrous, bringing chaos into the world and most likely killing the questers - Kallyr's quest severely injured the entirety of Sartar and ended her reign prematurely. You don't undertake it lightly. I don't believe there's been any super detailed step-by-step quests but we know the basic stages and obstacles. I believe either the Book of Heortling Mythology or King of Sartar should have a decent outline which you can flesh out. I'd imagine it would be one of the most variable quests, since it takes place during a time of unparalleled chaos and goes across the whole of the world and underworld.

If they're strong in harmony then I doubt they'd be drawn to Eurmal in the first place. Donadar is the choice for harmonious illusionists already. A strong Harmony affinity in a trickster would have to be something that emerged during play imo.

Yes, it has much more art. It also has a wealth of material found nowhere else, much of which is valuable for people trying to get a feel for the "here and now" of Glorantha rather than its mythology and metaphysics.

Once again, can you please move the Babeester Gor discussion to another thread? Discussing what's canon is completely anathema to the purpose of this one.

This opens up the question of whether the spirits of deceased members are still considered members of the community.

Honestly I'm at the point of saying that the only benefit larger skills get is increased special and critical chances. To hell with reducing people's skills and stuff like that, I don't see the point.

One last question: what's Chaosium's stance on the versions of the playtest rules floating around the internet?

Do you know why he didn't approve it?

In the case of spirits like Umbroli they could appear during myths as minor storm gods or something like that. You're already bringing the other side to the middle world during worship, O don't think it'd be that hard for some spirits to join in.

Wyrms apparently worship Orlanth on occasion. I wonder if they have their own temples or if you have the occasional wyrm dropping into services.

Yeah, you might not spend the whole day at the church, but you'd spend it feasting, watching performances, and enjoying the day. There's a lot more to religious activity than just going to the temple or church and engaging in sermons or prayer or the like, even today.

I think I'm in the 50-60% boat. If adventurers, aka heroes-to-be, only get 60% to start (disregarding bonus points, which I doubt your average farmer would have), then the regular joes of the world would have an even weaker connection to the divine imo. Also, 80% could be problematic for farmers, despite my post above, since that's the level at which you basically have to act according to it (and extreme independence, violence, and "I'm the best"-ness could be an issue).

I don't think farming is really something that depends much on personality. And hey, air could just inspire you to plow the best fields you can so you can flex on everyone else with your superior crop. Pride and boasting.

From what I've heard, there was another edition of Runequest under development while RQ3 was still in sway, called Runequest: Adventures in Glorantha. I've also heard there's still some copies of the playtest rules floating around the web, though I'm not sure of Chaosium's stance on it. To anyone who either was actually a playtester for this early "RQ4" or who has read it through some other means, what were your impressions of it? Were there any major changes from RQ3, any improvements or steps back? From the title, I'm assuming it was an attempt to return the game to Glorantha, but how well did it succeed? Are there any elements that showed up in later editions, up to and especially RQG?

If we could please steer the current variance to a different thread...

I don't think there's anything canonical, but I think it makes total sense that the biggest male fertility (well, Earth, but same difference) power in prehistory would have a few girls (and guys) on the side besides Gata.

I'm pretty sure that Jeff has said that Orlanthi tend to have a much more personal relationship with their deities, and thus a much larger proportion of people personally dedicated to one (aka initiated). Pelorians like the Lodrili, by contrast, have a more practical view of religion and worship whoever meets their needs. Thus, up north, you have a small but powerful magical elite who lead the masses in worship of whichever gods they need at the moment. I think most of the Dara Happan nobles are probably initiated, but they make up a rather small percentage of the population.

What was RQ3's take on rune magic? I was under the impression that it was similar to RQ2's.

Well, HQG initiates are honestly on about the same if not a higher power level than RQG initiates imo. Being an initiate lets you buy breakout abilities to do supernatural things with your runes, like lightning spears or opening holes in the earth. All lay members can do is augment with their runes, they can't have magical breakouts from them (at least from their cult, you could have a piece of personal magic as a breakout I guess).

You seem to be making a pretty big assumption that "initiation" in this context means lay membership. Iirc, lay membership is the equivalent of what pantheon worship was in HQ1. Thinking back on it, I'm pretty sure the 10% you keep citing was actually used in reference to Pelorians, who have been said to have a pretty low number of initiates, with makes sense considering their habit of dropping the worship of less effective gods (something you can't do easily if a lot of people are dedicated to them). I do remember hearing that among the Orlanthi there is a very unusually large number of initiates compared to pretty much every other culture. Sorry to drag you into this @Jeff, but I think we're all operating on assumptions and half-remembered things for this question. Can you give us some sort of estimate as to what proportion of Orlanthi would be initiated as full initiates?

Glorion, where are you getting the "10%" rule from?

I was pretty sure in Sartar that around 70-80% of the population were initiates. In other regions, especially Peloria, the practice is less common, but I believe it's been a thing that Orlanthi have had an unusually high number of initiates for a while now.

I solve the problem by playing RQ2 instead of RQG, and just plundering the latter for ideas and lore 😛