Richard S.

On 1/27/2020 at 9:33 AM, Tindalos said:

Neither, because they're all too cool for that.

I'm starting a petition to rename Yelmalio to the Cool Sun

Nice! I'm really looking forwards to this.

17 minutes ago, Darius West said:

It has sided with the Lunars against the Orlanthi, and if Elmal isn't due for a renaissance post Argrath, then something is wrong.

It sided with the Lunars because they paid them, and later the Sartarites for the same reason. They're mercenaries, and don't owe allegiance to any one nation, or even other Sun Domes. I'd imagine that that was part of the draw for Elmali - instead of being subservient to the Orlanth cult, they could have their own independent state with Lightfore as the primary god.

Argrathalso fully supports the Yelmalio cult, he even helps his companion Rurik Runespear become the high priest of the Vaantar temple.

1 minute ago, Frp said:

Number 14, the dragon issue, had quite a bit of content I haven't seen reused, except for the art, including a scenario with dragonnewts.

Nice! That's the one I'm eyeing the most.

My main question is how much of this stuff is going to be new? I know Glorantha publications have a tendency to repeat themselves, so I wonder what all in the WF footprints is actually stuff that hasn't seen the light of day in some more recent publication.

Edit: I know that none of this stuff is really "new", I just meant that a lot of it has never been seen by people like me who weren't there in the early years.

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

For dragon magic to work, you need to have a field of draconic energy to work with IMG. A sleeping dragon or a bunch of advanced dragonewts in deep meditation leak enough such energies to allow some fantastic draconic effects. The dragonewt road plinths may be such a source, though tapping into any of these may alert dragonewts or sleeping dragons.

You can have such a magical field from sufficiently draconized theist worship. That's how the EWF core lands operated, combining local human worship, local draconic stray energy and also "magical tribute" in Peloria and Ralios to create a highly magical field in which life became more draconic, as described in Middle Sea Empire.

There are ways to finance draconic magic with rune points or their equivalent (e.g. bachelor newtlings who survived their indenture with dragonewts who may receive dragonewt effects as their rewards). These rewards should be multiplied (or cost diminished) when applied in a strong draconic environment.

I remember hearing the EWF's draconic energy field referred to as the "dragon's dream" once. My theory is that when you get a sufficiently powerful draconic consciousness it broadcasts a field in which reality begins to conform to the dragon's thoughts. True dragons, having no interest in the material world, rarely cause it to change. Ruler 'newts and the Inhuman King try and keep it constrained to their cities, so they don't unintentionally create debts to the material world. The EWF masters, however, were too interested in the affairs of the world and so their consciousness reflected that on the empire.

It depends on what you mean by dragon magic. First off, there's dragonewt magic, which is innate to dragonewts and impossible for humans to use without significant spiritual and physical modifications, such as the tongue splitting practiced by the EWF. Dragonewts dislike using their powers because they enmesh them in the world and may cause them to revert to an earlier stage by unbalancing their emotional mastery. Humans who gain the ability don't have that risk and can use dragonewt spells without fear of devolution, resulting in bizarre personalities and degraded souls.

Secondly, there are some mystic schools that grant dragon powers to adherents, especially in Kralorela, but impose strict requirements on members and don't really allow the use of their powers outside of certain ritual purposes. For some more insight into this method, look up Ingolf on the Well of Daliath website. He was a dragon mystic in the EWF with incredible power who ultimately failed because he used his powers wrongly.

Thirdly, in the EWF there were the so-called "short cut paths" which offered powerful dragon magics without many of the restrictions of the other two methods. The Ten Step Program, which may be related to the Path of Immanent Mastery, was the most famous of these, and allowed its followers to transform into dragons physically. Unfortunately, most of these short cuts were stunted spiritually and none of their followers, including the members of the EWF's ruling ring, ever achieved their goal of becoming True Dragons. How these exactly worked is a mystery, but we know at least some of them were theistic, worshipping dragons (or rather heroes who had heroquested to form a link to a dragon) in return for Rune magic. It's possible some were shamanic as well, gaining powers from dragon thoughts and dragonewt spirits, and the Accelerated Dragon Worship of the council appears to resemble the Malkioni Chain of Veneration, though it's unclear whether ADW benefited anyone save for the council and their direct companions.

Edit: if you want some possible (though fanmade) rules for dragon magic, there are a few attempts to provide a framework for at least one method. First and most popular is Simon Phipps', which is for RQ3 and uses Pendragon's emotional pairs system but could easily be adapted for RQG (and the emotion pairs even replaced with Power pairs possibly): http://soltakss.com/dragon2.html and http://soltakss.com/kralori1.html

Secondly, there's my own ham-handed attempt to develop a system for casting dragonewt magic, though it's not very developed and would require some extra work to get going: https//basicroleplaying.org/topic/5792-dragon-magic-for-rq4-when-it-comes-out/

If you have the old RQ3 Gods of Glorantha book I believe it has a write-up of the Path of Immanent Mastery, if you want a quick and dirty theistic path to dragon magic. It could easily be adapted into a cult, though I'd say initiates would have to somehow develop a connection to the Dragon rune.

There is a book on Kralorela in the works too I think, which should have a more detailed treatment of dragon magic in the third age, but it probably won't be out for a good while.

Edit 2 Wyrmish Boogaloo: dragon magic often leads to a form of Illumination known as Draconic Consciousness. As far as we know, it follows the traditional rules for illumination (no fear of dragons/chaos, ignore spirits of reprisal, etc.) but it's gained by communicating with True Dragons rather than through Nyaslorian riddles. I'd say that it could be a requirement to be illuminated this way to join a dragon mystic school or learn dragonewt magic, and it could possibly give the illuminate either the dragon or dragonewt rune as well.

3 minutes ago, White Coke said:

Would Orlanthi even be able to worship Yelm if they wanted to? Dara Happans need to be descended from Yelm to worship him directly, and the Grazelanders can because they've maintained sufficient ritual purity by being Pure Horse People.

If Yelmalions can get their fire powers back from completing a Hill of Gold Heroquest, would Elmali also be able to get fire power from a Heroquest?

That's a good point. Yelm also, according to the sourcebook, requires total submission of his worshippers to the priests, something that I doubt would sit well with Orlanthi.

I'd imagine so, though the Elmali may not know the Hill of Gold myth, as that's not as important to Elmal's identity as the loyal thane.

I'LL TAKE YOUR ENTIRE STOCK

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

Also Delecti, as in corpus delicti. 

Gods I hate some of the Gloranthan names. 

I can't wait until we discover that the entirety of Glorantha has been leading up to one massive, world-shaking pun

On 1/24/2020 at 9:41 AM, Grey Hat said:

I’ve been tinkering with Discord but there doesn’t seem to be a way to show maps. Maybe Roll20 might be better? For a text based PbP game?
 

 

Inspired by what Jajagappa was saying, couldn't you just mock up a map in photoshop and upload it as an image to Discord at the start of each round? You could save each player icon as a separate layer so you can move them around without having to completely redraw the map each round. I do think Discord would be a good choice if you could do something like that; it's quick, easier on the eyes and more compact than a forum imo, and you can have separate channels to store character sheets and ooc discussion and whatnot.

57 minutes ago, Tindalos said:

Not separate cults, but variant cults, going from the last thing I saw on the matter.

I want to know what Arrow of Light does so I can compare all of their magics. I'm assuming it's basically just an arrow that hurts creatures of darkness, since I haven't seen it in any previous editions.

Hm. If you had an Elmali, a Yelmalion, a Kargzanti, and an Antirian all together, what would they think of each other? I'd imagine the Yelmalion would either try to convince them they really worshiped Yelmalio or just be quietly assured of it himself, but how would the others feel about worshippers of the other forms of Lightfore?

Even if it's not really canon, Elmal Guards the Stead has got me thinking. We know that, for a little bit, probably directly after the dawn before they had met the Pelorians, Elmal was the primary sun god of the Heortlings. Perhaps back then he had some disease fighting powers similar to Yelm's, won from the foes he fought while guarding the stead, and after Yelm was encountered and identified as the sun those powers were gradually forgotten and the myth changed to emphasize Elmal as Loyal Thane. I'm tempted to give a "secret" association between Yelm and Elmal that grants Fight Disease, perhaps requiring some unorthodox questing through that myth. Not sure if I'd allow the same opportunity to Yelmalions though.

54 minutes ago, dumuzid said:

Rankest God Learnerism!  Kargzant is the only true sun!

Viva la Ehilm, all your suns are the same! I'll God Learner who and what I please you ignorant barbarians!

Technically speaking Yelmalio is no more legitimate a name than Elmal or Antirius or Kargzant. They're all just different approaches towards the same thing: Lightfore.

3 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

Also, I had never realized there was a Light Rune, separate from the Fire/Sky Rune. It's surprising to me that it's a Condition Rune, too -- I would have considered it a (lesser?) Element Rune.

Where are you reading that it's a condition? AFAIK it's always been interpreted as a heatless subelement of sky/fire.

Just now, Grey Hat said:

I’ve been tinkering with Discord but there doesn’t seem to be a way to show maps. Maybe Roll20 might be better? For a text based PbP game?
 

 

R20 might work, but honestly if it was me I'd try and avoid maps altogether. I ran RQ for years without a single map irl, though we did modify the system a little too be looser and more friendly towards theatre of the mind. I'll see if I can find my notes again.

After being up in the mountains, I think I understand why Y/Elmal/io was worshiped more for light than heat. Even with the sun out it can be pretty cold up there, Yelm 's heat doesn't make a huge difference. The light is pretty useful for not falling off stuff though.

I think Elmal Guards the Stead is supposed to be a story about his loyalty and purity, not a story about fighting disease. Perhaps that's what it was at one time, and the first three does certainly seem like diseases, but in the current era I feel it makes more sense that it is told to emphasize his steadfastness, especially since all the disease fighting is the domain of Chalana.

Maybe Elmal, back when he was the primary sun of the Orlanthi, had disease fighting powers, but as his and Yelmalio's cults began to associate and Yelm was revealed as the sun he lost those. Teller of Lies may have also been added into the myth to emphasize that the story was now about loyalty and light, not disease fighting.

7 minutes ago, NewMars said:

Remember that he fought using his spear, though, and at this point and in this context it was unspoken that this was a burning spear. Which was rather my point: he defeated the creators of disease with his spear, which doesn't make a lot of sense if his spear isn't the flaming lance.

Why is it unspoken that it was flaming? There's nothing in there to suggest that the spear represented fire powers. Everything Elmal uses is called out for its light and brightness, there's nothing about heat. Yelmalio uses a spear too, but you don't see him burning things with it.

7 minutes ago, NewMars said:

This isn't from KoDP (exactly), the myth is actually in the book of Heortling Mythology. So even if KoDP isn't canon, that myth is.

Okay, so I just read the myth as presented in the BoHM, and there are only two mentions of burning. The first one is when Elmal throws Eater of Skin into the sky, where it burns up. The second one is when he burns up Maker of Bad Growth's remains with his brightness. Neither of these require him to have fire: in the first one the burning is done by the sky, and in the second it could easily be assumed that Maker of Bad Growth has some darkness connection and therefore was destroyed by sheer light.

1 minute ago, NewMars said:

This isn't from KoDP (exactly), the myth is actually in the book of Heortling Mythology. So even if KoDP isn't canon, that myth is.

Ah, my mistake.

1 hour ago, NewMars said:

Wait, without his fire powers, how does any part of Elmal Guards the Stead make sense? Half of that myth is specifically about the power of flame. When the stead is assaulted, it is by chaos creatures that represent disease: first is the eater of skin, which makes abscesses and bleeding wounds open on the skin. Second is the Author of sores, which causes wounds to fester and last is the maker of bad growth, which causes one's insides to multiply endlessly (i. e. tumours).

Elmal slays them all with fire in different ways, either through a burning spear or using the sun to turn them to ash and that's important. I mean, a myth isn't just a thing the gods did, but it illuminates something, namely it tells how one can fight disease through the use of flame to cauterise and purify. But without fire, none of that part makes any sense, both from telling what Elmal does/can do and from telling us that Orlanthi know flame can fight the Chaos of disease. So what is up with that, now?

This leads into another question: are KoDP and 6A even considered canon? I know many of us use and reference the myths given in them, such as this one, but I don't believe I've ever seen an official statement as to whether those myths are even canon.

5 minutes ago, g33k said:

Someone upthread alleged (I thought) an actual "devolution" path -- where a dragon strayed from the Draconic Way, & became a Dino -- existed in canon.  But maybe I mis-read...?

Dragonewts who stray too far from the path can be reborn as dinosaurs, usually by being overcome with a single emotion (or power rune perhaps?) that determines the type of dino they become. This has been an established part of canon. These "new" dinosaurs can breed with others of their species, but are intelligent and carnivorous despite what their species norm is. Any children will be normal dinosaurs, however.