Glorion

On 7/28/2022 at 5:13 AM, Soccercalle said:

You could create coupons worth only half of the price of the pdf. I would love to be able to pay extra for having the content 3-8 months before the hardcopy.

The perfect way to *really* increase the bookkeeping issues they worry about manyfold.

On 7/25/2023 at 3:40 AM, mfbrandi said:

I would be interested to hear the completion of the thought.

If Chaosium must have Pamaltela as “Fantasy Africa,” perhaps they should hand it over to actual Africans to retcon it into something unrecognisable.

The tendency to present everything as in-world documentation by unreliable narrators confers “plausible deniability,” but some of the stuff in the recent Prosopaedia reads as ill-considered metaphor:

• After the Greater Darkness, Pamalt called Noruma to rekindle the
  ancient fires. Kendamalar was reborn and was called Varama. He is now a
  slave, a bright orb of fire chained to an unyielding path, trapped by duty
  to his task.
  — p. 129
   
• [Tenoarpesas] returned from the Underworld as both the power of Ompalam
  and as Varama, the now shackled sun. He reclaimed the power of slavery.
  — p. 119

Duty or slavery? I am tempted to say pick at most one. “Reclaimed”?

• [Ompalam] is the corruption of the powers of the Center, where all should
  be balanced and harmonious, but instead are used by Ompalam for self-gain
  and tyrannical exploitation.
  — p. 91

So slaveholding seems to be some kind of metaphor for corrupt government and bondage more generally — everyone is a slave, possibly even Ompalam … especially Ompalam! — but he is also the literal god of slavery of a slave state. Is that a sensible choice? And of course he is obese, because what could be more corrupt than a fat person?

• Tentacule is the power of possession. Anything that is held by anything
  uses the power of Tentacule. Even the living who hold onto life are
  subject to it.
  — p. 119–120

That is the one that particularly gets my goat: note that it is the thing held (e.g. the slave) that uses the power of Tentacule and the thing doing the holding (e.g. the slaveholder) that is subject to it. That looks a lot like victim-blaming. “But, of course, we at Chaosium don’t think that — that is just an unreliable, ironic, or evil Gloranthan writer.” But the thing is one can easily imagine this starting with thoughts like “the lover is a slave to the beloved”, “the addict is a slave to their drug”, and “employers have become addicted to cheap labour.” The thing about metaphors is that they are usually false, so in a world where they are literalised left, right, and centre, one has to take some real care. And if the free were banned from using slavery as a metaphor for — I don’t know — the next 400 years, would the world be any the poorer for it?

(Yes the exploiter may indeed be in turn exploited, and they may be trapped by their very act of exploiting others — but it is unlikely to be those at the bottom who are the agents of the whole sorry mess.)

Finally, Garangordos:

• Garangordos brought the benefits of civilization, chief among them the
  ability for some individuals to treat other human beings as property to be
  bought, sold, and forced to work …

  Garangordos became the divine guardian of the temples of Ompalam …

  Garangordos is depicted as a black-skinned nobleman carrying shackles
  and a noose.
  — p. 44

I don’t really know what to make of that. It is not straightforwardly condemnatory like the description of Ompalam, and plausibly the IRL author is being sarcastic while the fictional Gloranthan author is writing from a pro-Garangordos POV.

Slow-witted as I am, I cannot figure out what Chaosium is trying to do with all the Pamaltelan slavery stuff, but I do wish they would stop.

I think it wasn't completed due to my computer having a mind of its own that day. I don't think I intended to say anything more profound than "which is bad." There probably should be slavery in Pamaltela, since after all there was plenty of slavery of different sorts in Africa, though not of the extreme ultra evil sort in the Fonrit writeup. And it did not have a racial character, as it most certainly does in Fonrit, with evil black people vilely mistreating blue people, and doing so in a manner that sounds suspiciously like Eurocentric caricatures of slavery in the Islamic world.

On 3/10/2020 at 6:40 PM, Sir_Godspeed said:

Read up on West African history for some inspiration. The Mali Empire, Ghana Empire, Songhai, etc (Basically everything along the Niger river, and westwards). While there is quite a lot of differences, these are the main inspirations for the region. 

Revealed Mythologies was mentioned already (although it's probably pretty scarce). I'm not sure if Middle Sea Empire has anything on them, someone might know. The Guide does have a section on Fonrit, of course, but I'm guessing you've already looked through that. 

 

The difference of course is that Mali etc. were not vile evil empires as Fonrit is. They practiced slavery sure, but so did Europe, it wasn't racial, and it was a lot easier for a slave to move up in the world and no longer be a slave in Mali than in Europe, to say nothing of Fonrit. A deep stench of Islamophobia with an anti black tinge to it runs through the RQ3 portrait of Fonrit, which 

On 2/27/2023 at 11:28 PM, Joerg said:

I wonder whether those meals for the high priestess and the virgins are sourced from volunteers.

Most unlikely. If you are *that* dedicated to Maran Gor, you probably are not just an initiate. Perhaps that's what happens to the virgins and the high priestess when it's time for them to go to heaven. 

On 2/24/2023 at 6:52 PM, Darius West said:

Are you some sort of Ogre apologist then? 😂

The ogres abuse the holy practices of Maran Gor. Usually the Tarsh Exiles only eat Lunars and other bad actors, but they are notorious for how freely they interpret human badness. Especially when the food supplies run low...

On 2/24/2023 at 1:47 AM, Joerg said:

You just declared the trolls of Glorantha as a chaotic species. (However, most uz would balk at letting Fire mess with their food if they can have it without, except perhaps as a transgressive "spice".)

You can argue that butchering sentients for eating is a transgressive behavior that may lead to Chaos when taken out of other mythical context. Funerary cannibalism already is something else again, whether done to kin, foes, or as a ritual to guide the dead on their way. Survival cannibalism in extremis is yet another situation, where "in extremis" may be the mythical framing for reliving the Greater Darkness.

Not just the trolls. The Tarsh Exiles, stern foes of chaos, are notorious for their fondness for cannibalism. Butchering sentients for eating is generally disapproved of among many humans, but that is a human quirk not shared by any other intelligent Glorantha sapients.

On 2/23/2023 at 12:13 PM, Agentorange said:

Following on from the Dragon skin thread, I was left wondering whereabouts in Glorantha could you get Crispy Duck in pancake rolls. originally I figured the  decadent Lunar empire. But then I thought maybe some of the more violent orlanthi might eat a meal as a gesture of contempt.....

There's a scenario in there somewhere.

Kralorela of course.

I have a fetching rules question which is rather important, if you have a shaman as I do. On p. 356, it says "when discorporate, the shaman cannot use the fetch's magic points to defend or attack, though they can use the fetch's magic points to fuel spells." IMHO a rather ambiguous statement, as on p. 368, it says "The shaman can draw magic points from the fetch at will, to replace their own, even during spirit combat." So is that using them to defend or attack, or just sort of like when a healer heals you during a battle? This sounds like a fine point, but in practice it's a huge difference, as crits on spirit combat go through all spiritual defenses, so then any fairly junior shaman is taking life in hands whenever he or she visits the spirit plane, unless it's possible to draw magic points from the fetch to heal after a crit.

21 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

SIZ is quite easy to... "improve" 😛 Much easier than any other stat.

Horizontally but not vertically.

On 12/29/2020 at 1:57 PM, Mameluco said:

Hi Jeff,

Why is Int the only attribute you can't improve during gameplay? 

Thank you.

 

Probably because except for SIZ, even tougher to improve, it's the only attribute you really can't improve in real life either.

Question! I have a Yelornan with Shooting Star. When it says in the Red Book that "armor
protects against this damage but magical resistance does not apply," does that only mean that it ignores Countermagic, or does it also means it ignores magical resistance such as the Protection spell?

14 hours ago, Joerg said:

Being a GM obsessed with such details, my interpretation would be that for each enchantment process - whether original or subsequent - the person performing the enchantment has to pour one point of POW into the enchantment. That person may bring in additional POW from their own magic, or they may use POW provided by volunteers.

Using your own mana is what is required to manifest this permanent (until destroyed) magic in the material world. People are pouring the fabric of their soul into this, then bind it off, separating the item from their own magical existence. Once separated this way, a new bit of that fabric needs to be poured into that item. While this happens, donations may use this connection between the enchanter and the item to contribute some of their own potential to manifest magic in this world. The successful enchantment then severs that connection - if it didn't, the death of any of the creators of / donors to the item would diminish the item in the way that MOB's Humakti Lottery Swords decay. No such effect has been observed for enchantments. In fact, the majority of enchantments worn by RQG characters would be heirlooms from past generations.

 

I sort of disagree with this notion. A destitute stickpicker will (barely) survive on zero L through the (possibly grudging) minimal support by their clan and whatever they can scrounge up.

These 50L are what is required to maintain the respectability of a free household. Bling showing off the status, (public) consumption of higher grade food, parading different items of clothing or adornments in social circumstances. A bit like having an I-phone that is no older than 2 or 3 years where an older model or one from a no-name manufacturer provides basically the same functionality.

 

I don't think that you can put a price to the housing, the rights to hunt and gather, the participation in clan and temple rites (and consumption of food sacrifices) that membership in a clan gives you.

 

Likewise, the price for a spear compared to the price for a sword doesn't compute unless the spear tip received the same amount of refinement as a sword blade does. In the end, you get a functional spear by hacking off a mostly straight branch or sapling, removing any branches (removing the bark is already optional) and crafting it to have a point. Given a piece of flint and a hammer stone, this entire process may be two hours of my time, with skills of "craft flint" or "use flint blade" in the single digit percentage. Looking for a suitable shaft in places where lumber is scarce will add to that time, so in Prax a spear shaft may be more valuable than the stone tip affixed to it.

(Biturian should really have carried spear shafts and axe handles, or maby just "raws", on two or three of his mules. Low investment - maybe a day's worth of a stickpicker's time for that load even if letting it rest for a winter under a shelter made from evergreen branches is added to the effort going into this, decent return. The stickpicker would in all likelihood strip those branches of the bast, which is used as material for cord or ropes, providing extra income while furthering the manufacturing process.)

Spear points affixed to the spear should be the price of the corresponding knife (which needs to be affixed to a grip, too). Good flint was traded almost the same way bronze was traded (except that it wasn't cast into oxhide bars). Pit mines for flint are older than permanent settlements, and there are places where the raw material only needs to be picked up. Taking a piece of flint and knapping it into a functional blade would be the equivalent of us starting up a computer. Okay, maybe our parents starting up a computer.

The bast I mentioned earlier can be one material used to affix a tip of a different material (stone, bone, horn, metal) to the shaft. You may want to use some sticky matter, possibly glue boiled out of bone or hooves, or pitch distilled from bark. That's some extra effort, but then producing this material would yield material for several such tasks.

The Schöningen spears (pre-glacial spears found less than 400 km south of where I live) are currently the oldest documented spears unearthed by archaeologists. Replicas were made of the same material and tested on ballistic gel and pork sides, and those replicas proved to penetrate several inches when thrown.

What's the price for a javelin? And does it have bluetooth to justify those prices?

 

In short, the price for a single spear as per the rules pays for the effort to produce enough spears for a small militia.

Yes, this is what I'm trying to put across. Prax is strictly a barter economy, and Sartar mostly. Realistic prices for Sartar would be in cows, not silvers, and I am not even sure that there is a word that means "price" in the Sartarite dialect of Theyalan. The word "economics" is *absolutely* untranslatable into any dialect of Theyalan, even in Nochet. The concept simply does not exist in Dragon Pass, and probably not elsewhere either, except maybe in Ralios with all those merchant-dominated Italian Renaissance style cities. That prices in the book are in Lunars is for gameplaying convenience, and also reflects the fact that *almost all* adventurers are far richer than average inhabitants of Sartar, to say nothing of Prax. (Except for my broke Eurmali, who is getting the Hotfoot spell by trading a bronze ax he found on a corpse to a Eurmal god talker in Prax, where all weapons are worth more than usual what with Argrath creating an army.)

4 hours ago, Kloster said:

In fact, I think the right answer is what PhilHibbs told:

After all, a broadsword is worth 50L (close to 1 year of living for 1 free family), and almost 1 adventurer has one. The listed prices are only for having interesting adventuring, and are only a simplified abstraction of Gloranthan economics, as are the various standard of living.

True enough. Your average Sartarite farmer or herder has a wooden spear, and couldn't possibly afford a bronze broadsword. Munchkinnery with selling points of power to get rich, or getting NPCs to sac power for enchantments, can easily be prevented by any intelligent GM by bringing in a few facts of life from actual Gloranthan economics or lack thereof, and should be. I think anyone trying that kind of thing should be assumed to be a secret sorceror who really is using Tap, and likely is chaotic, and should be treated accordingly. Unless it's a Lunar campaign, in which case the assumptions might be the same but the popular and government attitudes would be different.

9 hours ago, Brootse said:

All the prices in the rules are specifically for the Dragon Pass area.

Sure. Except practically nobody in Sartar except the nobility and rich merchants has that much money. And in Prax, it's rare to find anyone with more than a few clacks. So the prices are another way of saying "not available."

1 minute ago, Glorion said:

A limited notion of how the world works. Only in a monetary economy, which, basically, Sartar is not. Pretty common in the Lunar empire, or Nochet perhaps, or the West, but not in most of Dragon Pass, to say nothing of Prax. 200L equals a lot of cows. Yes in theory you could get a lot of cows for a Runepoint, but in practice that could beggar your village, so it doesn't happen. And besides, how many enchanters are there anyway? Damn few. Basically, in Sartar for a rune point for the enchantment Queen Leika's enchanter has been planning for a couple years, you might get a big favor, you might thoroughly impress Queen Leika. 

Come to think of it, in the West and in the Lunar Empire, there's a better method for the rich to drain power from the poor for all sorts of purposes. Namely Tap.

On 12/18/2020 at 2:52 AM, Akhôrahil said:

That’s one part of it, but another is that If we think that these rules actually describe how the world works, then it stands to reason that selling POW would be something that happens. The large supply (but unclear demand) makes me think you should be able to buy POW spends at well under 200 L per point.

A limited notion of how the world works. Only in a monetary economy, which, basically, Sartar is not. Pretty common in the Lunar empire, or Nochet perhaps, or the West, but not in most of Dragon Pass, to say nothing of Prax. 200L equals a lot of cows. Yes in theory you could get a lot of cows for a Runepoint, but in practice that could beggar your village, so it doesn't happen. And besides, how many enchanters are there anyway? Damn few. Basically, in Sartar for a rune point for the enchantment Queen Leika's enchanter has been planning for a couple years, you might get a big favor, you might thoroughly impress Queen Leika. 

Got it. I have a complaint! Tame Bull has been totally nerfed! Used to be an excellent spell! Now you can't hitch Storm Bulls to a plow or castrate them anymore.

On 12/6/2020 at 6:52 AM, Akhôrahil said:

I wonder exactly how bathing is defined for the Yelmalio geas. Do you bathe if someone tosses you into the Zola Fel?

Nope. You are either swimming or drowning. You are not bathing, unless you start looking around for soapweed or something while you duck paddle.

On 12/5/2020 at 10:19 AM, Rodney Dangerduck said:

The more I think about it, the more I think the Lie about a geas just plain fails.  Lies about religious dogma are very tricky.

Imagine the target is a Chalana Arroy.  And the Trickster says "Chalana Arroy commands you to kill that sleeping baby".

In any case, it's a horribly broken spell.  It has always been broken.

Chalana Arroy tells you to kill a baby, that fails, unless an INT roll is fumbled. Just shifting a geas from arm to legs is perfectly possible, in no way whatsoever vs. basic Humaktism. However, the backlash to it is is strong enough that no Trickster in his right mind would do that. The Trickster would rapidly end up exceedingly dead, with Stop Resurrection cast on him too. Unfortunately, few Tricksters are really in their right mind.

As long as you have a sensible GM, I don't see the spell as any more broken than various others I can think of. Certainly a lot less broken than Sword Trance!

On 12/5/2020 at 3:24 AM, French Desperate WindChild said:

Humakt knows there was a lie, but Humakt knows too that the humakti had a chance to understand it was a lie (well... or not, but Humakt is Humakt, don't challenge the death) and the humakti failed to see the truth... So a good humakti would ask for forgiveness

I as Humakt, would accept to forgive my loyal worshipper, I would just request the humakti to

- follow his "true" geas (the one I gave him)

- follow his "new" geas (the one he believed he has)

 

I think what Humakt would do, if asked in the proper fashion and spirit, would be that the character would get the geas back, but lose the gift from it. And the spirit of retribution would only pound him once. Getting the gift back would be possible but difficult, maybe a mini heroquest or something.

On 12/3/2020 at 5:47 AM, Akhôrahil said:

Sometimes, but not always. Matters of religious doctrine can matter a lot, for instance.

Tell a Humakti "Your geas about where you can't wear armor has shifted from legs to arms", and sure, when he puts on leg armor he will realize that it was a lie... far too late. 

Now there's a truly *nasty* Lie. That would work! It would also mean that from then on the word would spread to Humaktis to kill you on sight. Kinda like what happened to an old character of mine who ended a brief experience as a Humakti, he agreed to initiate to Humakt temporarily to go on a quest against Delecti, who got himself resurrected after he got killed. He has been fleeing Humakti ever since, really limiting my ability to use him as a character. Joining Yanafal helped, fends off the spirits of retribution, but not enough.

8 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

This works against the Lie ”You have always loved Chaos” (you haven’t), but not against ”Chaos is a necessary part of the Cosmos” (maybe your old hatred was uncalled for?).

A pointless Lie, as metcalph pointed out. It would not necessarily affect any of one's actions, so what for? Moreover, if you are not Illuminated the hatred of nonChaotics for Chaos is instinctive, so probably would overwhelm the Lie fairly quickly. Nothing is more incontrovertible than instinct. The effect of that Lie would probably be more or less like a milder and perhaps more long lasting Befuddle. The Storm Bull lusting to slay that allegedly chaotic Lunar would probably kvetch about it for a while before doing so. Remember, a Lie spell affects what you think, not what you feel.

10 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

By reason, yes, but I'm not sure I believe that's the Lie is actually worded. Disbelieving the lie requires "incontrovertible evidence", and how could you possibly find that against these kinds of statement?

To be precise, remember Glorantha is not Earth. If your priest imparts the cult wisdom that everyone knows and you knew all your life before the Lie spell, that is incontrovertible for you. Philosophers might consider it controvertible, so perhaps sorcerors are more vulnerable to Lie spells than others.

10 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

By reason, yes, but I'm not sure I believe that's the Lie is actually worded. Disbelieving the lie requires "incontrovertible evidence", and how could you possibly find that against these kinds of statement?

Eh. Memory of hating chaos or whatever all your life is pretty incontrovertible in my book.

1 hour ago, Kloster said:

Which means it also can't be dispelled.

Ye indeed, cannot be dispelled, or resisted, or shielded from by Countermagic, as Lie is a spell on *oneself.*

55 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

as i don't understand what I write, that is not an issue

 

In that case, you are the perfect person to run a Trickster character.

38 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

With Extension 5, it could last for a year.  That should be plenty of time to cause havoc.  🙂

Lie is an Instant spell, so not extendable.