Richard S.

Thanks! You make lots of good points, especially about the lack of a really "mystical" feel. I was basing this largely off of how the Dragonspeakers were presented in MRQ1, which was mostly just a standard cult structure with slightly different magic, so probably very similar to the PoIM (which is probably itself just a glorified Hsunchen tradition). Any suggestions on how to fix the issue? I like shape shifting and all but that's not the only thing I want for my character. For starting out I was thinking that you just won't want to put any extra points into your elements, and assuming you've joined the cult you can just pump 40 of your starting points into it. Maybe I could go with replacing one of your element choices with it, I dunno. As for the power of the magic, size ≠ power all the time, just look at societies like the Puppeteers or the Larnstings, though it's true that a lot of really powerful cults will attract a lot of followers. My view was that the Dragonwalkers, while small, still have access to a great many EWF secrets which are pretty powerful, though spell balance was definitely one of my biggest challenges. Maybe I could change Dragon's Form to actually turn the character into a Dream Dragon, randomly rolled (probably putting a lot of restrictions on time extensions and stuff)? As for the Dragon's Breath point, I was trying to base it on the Lightning spell but I must've missed the Pow v. Pow roll, oops. On your Power Runes idea I did include them in earlier ideas of mine for dragon magic, either as a prerequisite for advancement or as something that actually restricts your development. Basically the goal was to balance them, with the advancement ides requiring you to have balanced a certain number of pairs to advance, and the restriction idea being that the total of your powers' differences and your elemental runes penalized your casting skill. Illumination could definitely play a part in this, as one of its functions in RQG is removing the "must add to 100%" restriction from your powers, according to the guy who summarized the rules from Nyaslor's cult in the preview GoG he got. That's a great idea! Awaken was kind of a last minute though for me, so I didn't give it as much consideration as the other spells. Thank you for the suggestion! Like I said to Joerg this is heavily based on MRQ's rules for Dragonspeakers, which heavily used transformative magics, though I do want to look into more mystical, interesting options for spells or even the type of magic, maybe something other than traditional Rune magic. How you're running it seems similar to my original idea of having the mystic advance through different "stages" reminiscent of Dragonewt castes, gaining similar powers as they do so, though later I had a theory that maybe human dragon magic was just fancily re-skinned Rune magic and scrapped the idea. Now I may want to return that idea to the drawing board, looking at all the suggestions on this thread. Anyways, thank you all for taking a look and giving suggestions, your feedback is tremendously helpful 😃. I was also looking at a homebrew cult for some Pavis-based dragon magic (https://web.archive.org/web/20010117041300/http://home.primus.com.au/arkat/estangtang.html) and it looks like it has some good ideas I may steal too.

Hey all. I'm playing in an RQG campaign soon and got permission to have a dragon mystic character. This is my attempt at writing up a cult based on the EWF's Dragonspeaker cult, though I've made the decision of making it a regular Rune cult as opposed to making a new dragon magic system for human PCs (well I technically did that already but it was way too complicated). I'd like some feedback on the cult from people who know the game better than I do, and maybe some of your thoughts on just draconic mysticism in general too. We're not starting for a few days I don't think so I have time to edit the cult if this thread provides some good ideas. Here's the link to the doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zBNZWAq-1mRuysMhbA9TfE4UNxsD7crvsOjiAM0VOwY/edit?usp=sharing

In RQG Issaries rune has been replaced by Movement and Harmony (which are its composite runes anyways) so that you only need the runes on your character sheet.

Narl's question is about Matrices I believe, not storage crystals.

This actually fits with what I know of sorcery pretty well. It's very specific, situational magic for the most part and relies on preparation and knowledge of your enemy to use effectively.

I'd probably require casting analyze magic to know for sure, though if they knew it was a matrix they could also just try casting it. Whatever runes or other decorations are on it could give a clue too.

Mostal, Cold, and the Invisible God are their official designations I believe.

The spell's from the Seven Mothers right? Easy, he just uses Moon. Summon Elemental is a common rune spell IIRC.

Don't worry about the timeline, KoS is probably just a bunch of documents specifically selected and edited by the Harshax's cronies to fit his vision of history anyways. YGMV, your players will drive the Hero Wars where they will and wherever that goes will be amazing. Edit: In fact it would be kinda interesting if you could keep us updated on their directions, seeing things through the eyes of a group new to the setting would be interesting and I really want to see how your dragonewt and pyromancer players work out

One movement unit is typically 3m². Your average human can move up to 8 units or 24m in a round.

I think a proper regiment of magicians would have very few non-rune levels in it. You may need to rethink your strategy

I'd assume small strike teams of not quite hero level assassins, but they're still experienced enough to be assigned national level missions, so probably Rune Lords. If they're part of an organized cult they're probably provided by it with special equipment and/or spells to help finish the job. You don't need a lot, they just need to be smart and resourceful.

Despite how it's generated and presented, Oratory is a single skill, not a category. I think it would be better if you put in an other skills section where your Oratory space is now, and put Oratory under that. Another thing is that the "mind" column in the spells should be a space, not a checkbox. It's supposed to show how many points of the spell you have readied in your mind at the time (you can adjust how many points you have ready if it's variable). Otherwise, it looks good!

*In the upcoming RQG GoG.

Hm, looks interesting. I know there's gonna be an official H&M cult in the GoG book, so I wonder how similar it'll be to your idea.

Wait a Gloranthan comic? I must have it!

Oh how I wish my players were like that...

I would imagine they would be found in some important Lunar cities, Nochet, Ktalorela, and maybe some places in the west.

From what I understand the bonus is factored into your skill value at all times, so when rolling for experience it remains a part of your current skill, but you also add it to the D100 roll.

Ah yes, the sun worshipping Greek/Babylonian assholes. They're a very rigid, patriarchal society ruling much of Peloria and currently the central provinces of the Lunar Empire. Their emperor, said to be a son of Yelm, is also the Red Emperor of the Lunar Empire and son of the Red Goddess, and the de facto head of the Yelm cult. All male Dara Happens are nobles, but only a few initiate to gods, preferring to merely be lay worshippers, and a small minority practice sorcery, mainly the cult of the scribe god Buserian. Families also practice ancestor worship, tracing their lineage back thousands of years into the god time. The Dara Happens are enemies of the Orlanthi and their god, seeing them as good-for-nothing rebellious barbarians (rebellion is the capital sin of Dara Happa), mortal enemies with all Darkness cults, and they dislike Water cults too. They are allied with the Red Moon and Yelm is married to the Earth goddess Dendara, so they are on friendly terms with those two pantheons.

Are Vinga and Adventurous going to be separate subcults in the GoG? I heard something about that but considering what's been said in this topic I'm not sure if that's accurate anymore.

Oh, I have some homebrew rules for how Dragon Magic could work for PCs written up from a while ago. I've promoted it in a few threads before but I think it may be relevant to this:

Ehh. YGMV again but here's my issues: 1. If a dragonewt reincarnates as a different race it will be a dinosaur, and only if they regress to and then fail at being a crested. Basically a dinosaur is a lower caste than even a crested . Magisaurs are a particularly good option for former dragonewt PCs as they commonly learn human magics and interact with them. 2. Evil is a bad way to describe why a dragonnewt would regress. They regress due to "wrong action", the opposite of "right action", basically by disobeying their duties/and or becoming too entangled with the world. Instead of regressing, a dragonnewt can also just become cut off from the cycle if the inhuman king deems their wrong action too great, preventing them from every resurrecting again and making them an outcast in dragonewt society. 3. Dragonnewts will go to almost any length to destroy/mutilate their past bodies so they cannot be used for anything, which would degrade the dragonnewt's soul. This is in fact part of their Utuma suicide ritual, in which they use their blade to mutilate the body so thoroughly while killing themselves it can never be used again. Thus, unless they screwed up at destroying it, there is little hope at resurrecting the body, as it was either destroyed by them, by whatever killed them, or used to make dragonewt hide armor (a very magical and difficult to make thing). 4. If they were already near drains dragonhiod, aka in the final stages of being a winged/ruler, how did they mess up so badly as to be divided from the path, and how did they die before attoning it? By all rights they should've been spending most of their time cooped up in meditation preparing for the final transformation, or even waiting in their egg.

Alright, as self-appointed dragon expert of the unofficial Chaosium discord (a position which I am definitely not qualified for), here is my opinion on dragonewt PCs: don't. Or at least not traditional dragonnewts. A barbarian dragonewt (aka one which is no longer part of dragonewt society and cannot resurrect/evolve) can be fun to play, as they still retain some dragonewt features while also being able to adopt other customs and magics. How you would go about determining runes and passions for them is a mystery to me though. Perhaps they acquired a connection to one or more runes resulting in their departure from the path? In any case they'd probably still be an odd duck to play. Perhaps you could play an orthodox dragonewt temporarily, one who is on a mission from their temporal ruler. If so I'd suggest imposing some restrictions on their behavior given by their ruler, to better integrate with mortals, and also focusing on the threat of them losing the path of they become too involved in the world. Plenty of odd, random behaviors and bizarre rituals should be enacted by the player, and then and the GM should discuss their dragonnewt's mission and restrictions/obligations in private. In either case I'd recommend you keep player characters to the Crested caste. That will both keep them from completely overshadowing the party in combat with higher castes' dragon magics and hightened physical abilities, and it's more reasonable that they would have fallen/be on a dangerous mission like that. Also if they're barbarians they can still learn non-dragon magic if they're created. Anyways, YGMV. These are just my suggestions if you want to try and sick to "canon" (at least I hope this is acceptable within canon), but you could always change up how dragonewts work or interact with the world if it suits your game.

According to what I've been told, Vinga and Adventurous are going to be seperate cults/subcults of Orlanth once the GoG hits.