Richard S.

31 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

I'm open to that outcome!

In the grim darkness of the 41st age...

47 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Let 10000 shamans converge and share wisdom.

I'm pretty sure that's how you get an entirely different god...

Personally I think Sword Trance should work the same as Arrow Trance from the bestiary. A straight skill doubling and an inability to do anything not related to the weapon while in the trance.

10 hours ago, David Scott said:

https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/catalogue/publishers/issaries/issaries-heroquest-1-products-2003-20xx/heroquest-1-archive/heroquest-1-support-material/heroquest-1-sample-keywords/

 

Oh, nice to see that the HQ1 articles are being added to the well!

This visualization of how long a pike actually is made me realize something. Yes, a warrior with heavily buffed weapons, like a Humakti or Uroxi, will be a threat to normal soldiers, but against a disciplined Yelmalian regiment they can't even get close enough to attack!

Honestly I think the biggest change that should be made to Rune Magic is restricting which special spells are available to initiates. For example, I don't agree that things like Thunderbolt or Flight should be available to initiates of Orlanth and thus available, and probably known, to roughly 80% of Heortling men.

I think I may give Yelmalio Morale, gods know he needs something a little OP....

Edit: also it makes no sense to me why Humakt of all people has it and not the actual organized military god.

A Sartarite Yelmalian separated from his regiment facing off against a Pelandan hoplite. 1629, colorized. Obviously this Yelmalian has been been on the Hill of Gold Heroquest and defeated Zorak Zoran, allowing him to wear the color red.

Arangorf is the secret that allows humans to communicate with dragons and learn from them. When Alakoring "freed" Orlanth he purged the draconic influence from the cult, possibly through a Heroquest where he killed Arangorf, and draconic knowledge was almost totally lost after the fall of the EWF when much dragon magic just stopped working. After the dragonrise, most of the dragon powers that had gone dormant woke up again, such as the Arangorf secret, allowing humans to learn them again. Argrath was probably illuminated by a true dragon, which gave him insights into dragonkind.

Hm. I wonder if the part of the myth where Orlanth broke the dance was caused by Alakorings heroquesting.... I do wish we knew more about him, he was important enough to become the primary hero of a considerable portion of Orlanthi and founded one of the big three Orlanth cults.

It may have been from Pavis: Gateway to Adventure. I know that that one at least has a scenario about escaping the salt mine like you mentioned, though I don't recall the particulars on the Yelmalian personalities.

Speaking of shield push though, do we have any official rules for that? It sounds like solar (american) football from what I've heard, and a lot more ordered than the darkness rugby that is Trollball.

24 minutes ago, Aprewett said:

Maybe not clear enough.

I understand the difference in system description.

But why does the table not list these numbers as per my example. On the chart.

Why show the overlap in numbers between the different results.

Does it make any difference? It's still clear that if you have a 50% skill the you get a special on a 10 or less and a critical on a 3 or less. They could list the exact ranges, sure, but I don't see how it would improve things. You just get the lowest level of success you rolled regardless of whether the numbers on the table overlap or not.

1 minute ago, White Coke said:

What does the power of thunder entail? Making loud noises to scare things?

Loud noises, yes, but it's more powerful than just scaring things. It's related to darkness somewhat I believe, and a lot of the time is represented by things like drums and clubs. I've heard some examples of it being used to inspire troops, shatter enemy morale, and sometimes physically break things.

23 minutes ago, White Coke said:

Some versions of the Hill of Gold mention Orlanth stealing Yelmalio's Lightning Spear. Is that supposed to be a javelin, or did Yelmalio also have lightning powers? Because if he did I thought the only Sky god to use lightning was Shargash because he took it from Umath.

IIRC, Yavor is the Lightning Javelin, a sky god enslaved/befriended by Orlanth, and thus the source of the Air Rune's lightning powers (lightning is pretty much just a weak sunspear coming from a cloud anyways). He may have been Yelmalio's javelin I think. And Shargash didn't steal lightning I don't think, but he did gain the power of thunder.

16 minutes ago, davecake said:

Actually, all you need to do is get promoted to get Sunspear. Yelm grants it as an associated cult, but only to Chief Priests of Yelmalio. 
Of course, you usually get promoted by waiting for the guy above you to die or retire, but there are ways of hurrying that along. 

In RQ2 it was also available to priests serving the Light Captain, along with the Light Captain themselves, Light Keeper, and High Priest. I hope it's presented that way in the GaGoG as well.

11 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

no water, no clothes, no cutting your hair: when you roll spectacularly shitty during character creation.

a clever shaman rapidly learns to bathe with milk or oil

A clever shaman rapidly learns that bathing and shaving are unnecessary 😛

2 hours ago, SDLeary said:

I see a Mostali use for Shaman's in this statement.

SDLeary

Obviously proper Mostali would never deal with those rebel energies called directly, controlling them through dwarf magic is the only acceptable way. However, I do wonder if some heretic sect has tried to deal with spirits more efficiently by training dwarves as shamans. The experience would probably shatter the dwarfs' minds, and once the council got wind of it it'd be recycling for the lot, but an escaped member of such a project could be an interesting character concept.

5 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Forgive me, but everytime I see this thread, I had the urge to edit a certain meme:

 

GET DOWN MR. MONROGH!

I'm honestly confused why people are pushing for Yelmalio to have more war magic. He hasn't had anything more than Shield and one-use Sunspear since his first writeup, and I've never seen people complaining about it till now. Granted, I wasn't around back then, but my skims over the mailing list and such haven't revealed any controversy over how useful his magics. There's also a point to be made that giving him things like his own Sunspear and Truespear would defeat the purpose of the cult's entire core myth - he doesn't need his weapons, his own virtues are what saw him through, not some silly weapon, and so his worshippers rely on their own virtues as well. They may not be able to throw fire and cut down enemy ranks singlehandedly, but what they lack in magic they make up for in will, grit, training, and the knowledge that the light will continue, whether they personally stand or fall.

(Also he'd technically have Truesword if he had kept his weapons from the darkness, not Truespear. "His favored weapons of bow and sword fell also, and were absorbed into the knowledge of the whole world.")

Are houses and clans synonymous in Nochet? Is there a form of tribal organization as well?

2 hours ago, Tindalos said:

As a bit of a sideways question, just how big do Sun Dome Temples count as ruleswise? Because the County's the size of a tribe, are they a Major Temple? Or as a prominant religious site, is it one of Dragon Pass' Great Temples?

Also is the temple to the sun in Runegate a minor temple (as on page 14), or a major temple (as on page 49)?

Anything to RQG, a great temple requires 750-4,000 lay members and initiates, and is run by a High Priest. The Sun Dome County in Dragon Pass has about 10000 inhabitants and we know there's a High Priest. I think it's safe to assume that most of the men will be at least lay members of Yelmalio, if not initiates, so it's likely that it qualifies for Great Temple status.

Recently I saw an article on how Dinosaurs probably didn't sound like how many of us imagine. Even among the huge, impressive carnivores like the tyrannosaurus, they would've sounded much more like modern day birds rather than the monsters from Jurassic Park: lots of squawks, chirps, hoots, and murmuring, but no roaring. Assuming Gloranthan dinos are the same way, I wonder if this says anything about their cousins, the dragonewts. I'm thinking of Auld Wyrmish as being composed of these "close-mouthed" sounds, nothing requiring vocal cords. To a human ear it would sound very melodious and alien, but it would be hard to distinguish between similar sounds. Pre-tailed stages probably lack vocal cords at all, which would explain why they basically have to be mutilated to speak human languages.

I'm wondering how the split tongue could play into this - maybe it can be used to make two sounds at once, like a low and high hoot together, or a long trilling punctuated by hisses from the other side. You could have either a conversation with these "two-tone" words or two separate "one-tone" conversations at once, one with either tongue tip. If this is on top of the established olfactory and sensory components, I'd be surprised that a human could even learn 25% of the language without surgery.

9 minutes ago, davecake said:

Yes, it makes perfect sense that Hastatus could be associated with Yelmalio, and as a source of weapon enhancing magic it would bring Yelmalio up to par with other warrior cults - I just have never seen a writeup in which it is. I guess that Hastatus is more restricted to Dara Happa?

I doubt that Hastatus has a full cult of his own. I'd presume that both he and the other weapon gods are usually subsumed under Yelm the Warrior, like how the Thunder Brothers are a part of the Orlanth cult.

Maybe the reason we aren't seeing as much content for the JC as we do the MR is because everyone's intimidated by the quality of book like these

17 minutes ago, White Coke said:

So how does Daysenerus differ from Yelmalio? Does he offer different powers or is it mostly a cultural difference like Elmalites being Orlathi vs. Yelmalions being Solar?

Probably Daysenerus just emphasized the mystical aspects of Yelmalio. AFAIK the cult was basically the same as Yelmalio's, but when Nysalor revealed him at the Battle of Night and Day the god of the sun comes was named Daysenerus.

5 hours ago, Crel said:

At this stage, I'm starting to wonder if Elmal is actually just a misnomer for Eurmal the Bright.

Of course, everyone's Eurmal and their religions are just a giant cosmic prank!