Richard S.

Also of note, we know that people can be worshipped after death and provide magic, through being a subcult of a greater god, without having to go through a bunch of complicated hoops. The hoop-jumping comes in when you want to become a proper god outright instead of just a hero.

Well there's this: https://www.chaosium.com/runequest-rpg-submissions/. Besides that I don't think we've gotten any news.

Just now, PhilHibbs said:

A friend of mine rolled up a duck the other day, and more than half the dice were sixes.

A duck you say?

3 minutes ago, styopa said:

I'm not saying it's impossible to have rolled that, but it's below 1/100th of 1 percent chance.

https://anydice.com/articles/4d6-drop-lowest/

He could've been using alternative rolling rules. I personally like to use the "drop 1s" rule.

The difference between gods and men is that gods are (supposedly) trapped by the Cosmic compromise. They are no longer allowed to act directly in the middle world except for in cases where the compromise is threatened, and may only perform those actions they could before time (their myths). While this rule is open to some interpretation and has shown to be more than a little flexible, the ability to grant magic and receive POW requires a lot more than simply people praying to you. There are demigods like Jar-Eel, Cragspider, and the Stormwalkers who break the rules for mortals through Heroquesting and are worshipped by many, but even they can't distribute Rune magic or take advantage of POW sacrifices. They may be able to use sacrificed MP since we know wizards can with the chain of veneration. As for spirits, well most of them exist on the same side of time we do and so only know magic instead of granting it to worshippers. Great spirits like Oakfed exist on the god plane at least partially, though they're slightly more free to act, and so can give some limited Rune magic. Other spirits, like Black Fang, grant Rune magic by interceding for another god (well, at least if BF's RQ2 description is canon). To become a god, you must make or be given a place in the god plane, leaving behind the middle world for the world of eternity.

But of course, YGMV, and even in canon the rules can, have, and will be broken. And there's a good chance I'm wrong about at least a few of my points.

15 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

I'm aware of the augment... I still doubt an Assistant Shaman going for full shaman-hood is going to have a huge skill... and likely whatever their is is going to be reduced.

I dunno about your players, but one of my players started with 95% Spirit Combat as an assistant shaman of Waha. He's currently up to about 105% after about two sessions (we're playing with weekly instead of seasonal skill increase checks).

2 hours ago, gochie said:

Depends on your rolled stats... 

My Orlanthi/Humakti with 18 STR, CON, and SIZ, and 16 DEX is special for sure 😊. 

True, but I see you're avoiding mentioning his INT stat 😋

The sheet looks good! I think my only gripes are that I think Runes should be on the front page as equipment on the second, and the non-character runes like infinity and law. Other than that it's a good sheet.

POW in Glorantha isn't really willpower like it is in CoC, so it's not tied to a sanity stat or anything. It's more of a measure of how in tune you are with the universe or how much the gods favor you, which translates to more powerful magical ability and luck. Sacrificing POW is pretty common in Glorantha, especially for initiates of gods who can gain Rune magic from doing so. It's also the easiest characteristic to increase.

45 minutes ago, RHW said:

Nice. It's roughly based on the short Shargash write-up from... um... I forget. Some Heroquest supplement. But I took a lot more liberties with Shargash than I did with previous adaptations.

I think eleven lights had some notes on the elevens and Shargash? Maybe that's what you're thinking of.

I also just noticed that you got rid of his Disorder affinity, why is that?

Huh. Surprisingly similar to how I envisioned him.

2 hours ago, RHW said:

Yelmalio isn't "inferior" though. His side WON the schism. Yelmalio came out on top in whatever magical struggle there was between the cults. Yelmalio was also a major war cult of the Empire of Light. And they're the ones with the phalanxes of hoplites to sell to the highest bidder. So all I'm saying is they shouldn't suck at the thing they're supposed to be really good at... close combat.

In my opinion, what Yelmalio lost shouldn't be Shield... it should be FIRE. Elmal should still have Fireblade and Firespear and all that good stuff while Yelmalio has gifts, geases, more subcults, better military organization, etc. But both should have Shield IMO.

The thing about Yelmalio being inferior was a joke :P. But I do agree with you, the difference between the two should be about fire magic. Unfortunately, Jeff is very adamant about how he wants Elmal in RQG, and iirc has even said that if he rewrote SKoH he would remove Elmal's fire powers.

The main problem with giving Yelmalio Shield on RQG is that Elmal gets Shield in return for losing gifts and headed. Give Shield to the inferi- I mean Yelmalio, and Elmal gets crapped on even more.

It says "the equivalent of", not "the actual spell" so I'd say it's legal. We're dealing with god magic here, who cares if it's balanced?

I do wonder at the in-world reasons for spirit magic incompatibility though. Do protection and shimmer spirits just not get along? "Damn you you blurry excuse for a defense spirit! Just stand there and take the damage like a real man!"

If we're on the topic, where could I start getting into Tekumel?

I know that in Dragon Pass nearly everyone initiates to a cult, but how would you handle characters with only pantheonic or even no initiation? I believe in Peloria initiation is far less common, and in the West, especially in Rokari and Brithini-dominated places, I would be surprised if there were large numbers of initiated Dronars, though Horali and Talars would probably be more free to use Rune magic. Would you just forgo choosing a cult template? Would you give the character other bonuses to make up for not being initiated?

I personally don't think mysticism can ever be confined to one form of magic. Some of it is the traditional three, but most mystic sects follow their own rules. Lunar and draconic magic, for example, are both forms of mysticism, yet they use radically different rules. Vithelan dream magic and the weird, unique strikes wielded by eastern martial artists are also unique and, though perhaps similar, working under different rules than the big thee. There are many rune cults, spirit cults, and sorcery schools that could certainly be classed as being "mystic", but there are also hundreds of other ways to do magic. Some of them may not even be mysticism, even if they're different from the big three.

8 minutes ago, gochie said:

No offense to the Chaosium peeps, but I edited the character sheet (the 2 first pages) significantly. Some things were missing imo, and the only part I kept from the weapons skills is the natural weapons category, since it really makes no sense to have weapon categories as skills. I added some blank lines to every skill category, including weapons and spells, and managed to fit the companion/animal/spirit stats onto the 2nd page (We probably won't really use page 3 & 4).

I don't know if it's allowed, but I could possibly share it with you guys if you're interested.

Could you put that in the downloads section here?

I do find it silly that the weapon categories are listed when you train individual weapons rather than categories. I really do think the character sheet could've been better thought out, but at least character sheets are easy to make yourself if you don't like the official ones. That's what I end up doing a lot.

13 hours ago, Jeff said:

The commoners and nobles have access to spirit magic and rune magic. The priests use sorcery exclusively.

Would Carmanians and other such sorcery/Rune magic mixing cultures also follow this model?

Well this was unexpected

3 hours ago, soltakss said:

We know that Pantheonic Initiation is a thing, where people initiate to a Pantheon rather than a single deity. So, you initiate to the Lightbringer, Praxian, Storm tribe, Water tribe, Earth tribe, or Lunar Pantheon and gain some minor magic that way. 

Huh. I've never heard of that except for something similar in HW/HQ1 so I didn't think it was canon. How would that function in game terms?

The story of Turin was based quite heavily on an old Finnish legend from the Kalevala, which also featured a talking sword, incest, and suicide like Tolkien's version. Turin's Black Sword probably has little to no connection to Excalibur/Callandor.

5 hours ago, Jeff said:

As does Gods and Goddesses.

Let me restate this - I do NOT consider mysticism to be a separate magic system comparable to rune magic, sorcery, or spirit magic. There is Lunar magic. There may be some weird cults that use mystical disciplines do some strange things with one system or another - for example Dayzatar's monks have some powerful Rune spells as a result of their austere life, but they are Rune spells. There may even be a few cults that have some bizarre abilities as a result of the same - but that is no different than Yelmalio and Humakt having gifts and geases.

 

So instead of having mysticism be any different rules-wise than normal magic it's just a case of whether a certain cult or organization is considered mystical? I like that, it gives more freedom.

Geez. Y'all get way to worked up about stuff like this.