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Glorion

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Everything posted by Glorion

  1. My theory: it's where ZZ ripped off the wings of the pegasi, turning them into horses. Presumably there are still a few pegasi somewhere, but only a truly heroic pegasus would want to go there of all places!
  2. Pegasi are winged horses, true rarities. I think you practically have to go on a Splendid Yamsur Heroquest to meet one, though there likely are some somewhere or other, and I figure that Zorak Zoran ripped off Gamara's wings at Pegasus Plateau in the Godtime, that's why the name. (Or a ZZ Heroquest come to think of it, if you want to quest to destroy the only surviving pegasi somewhere or other). Hippogriffs are more complete than Pegasi, they still have beaks and front claws, though not fangs. If you have the whole set, it's a king hippogriph, rarest beast of all.
  3. This is all true. Figuring out how to discorporate is a very minor part of becoming a full shaman, merely the first small step on the path. Nonetheless, in RQG you need to follow the explanations laid out in detail in the book about how to become a shaman, probably quite different in HQ I assume. And there is a gaping hole in them as to how to discorporate so as to meet the Horned Man. I think my suggestion is the one that works best, and is best in the spirit, if not the letter, of the rules as written.
  4. Indeed! A big problem. I'm running it this weekend, and my fix is that Kana allies with Nerestina, the merchant's daughter from Esrolia with the high Moon Rune to get there at 3, and Joreen arrives right after at 2.
  5. Ah. Now, that's another solution that actually works. In fact, that has to be the case, or how could the shaman teach the Assistant things like Spirit Travel and Spirit Dance? If the official rules state otherwise, then they should be fixed, or simply ignored by sensible GMs, YGMV you know. However, I don't think that's right for the ritual to become a shaman, because the apprentice is supposed to achieve that on his/her own. I think it is more appropriate that self-discorporation is the very first step on the path to shamanhood, only achievable by a shaman's apprentice who has studied at least a year and is deemed ready by the shaman, and then only after days of fasting, meditation and prayer. Not easy and automatic as it is for a full shaman.
  6. You certainly havem't made yourself clear! You wrote: " I think the spell is NOT made for spirit travel but Mundane plane travel," in other words that the Discorporate spell doesn't do the trick. And in fact, since it only lasts 15 minutes, it doesn't do the trick! Jajagappa forgot that. The Discorporation spell, despite being divine and not spirit so inappropriate and downright impossible for a shaman who doesn't have a divine cult, just plain doesn't work. I don't care how many people claim that it does, Jeff, anybody. It's useless for the shaman ritual, you had it right the first time actually. It's a hole in the RQG rules as written. I think my solution, namely that those days of fasting and meditation and prayer that are required are what enables someone to discorporate who has studied under a shaman for at least a year and seen as ready by the shaman--is the only one that makes any sense and feels right. It means the apprentice is actually *doing* something important in his time in the cave. If you don't like it, then hazia or something similar is a requirement for becoming a shaman. That may actually be what Greg intended, he was not an opponent of unauthorized pharmaceuticals according to rumor. Argrath is notoriously into hazia. Still, though a better crutch for a hole in the rules, still a crutch.
  7. MJ: unless you can discorporate, you can't face the Horned Man in the first place! The RQQ rules make that quite clear. The encounter with the Horned Man takes place on the spirit plane, and can't possibly take place anywhere else. So if you can't discorporate, you cannot become a shaman, it's that simple. End of story. I think doing it with hazia and so forth is a crutch, and the rune spell Discorporate an even more dubious crutch, since a true shaman isn't initiated into any divine cult at all. I think the solution is that starting on the path to shamanhood by days and days of fasting and meditation when you are ready, enabling you to discorporate yourself without artificial aids, is the only solution that makes any sense. What's more, shamans (shamen?) can't discorporate anyone else, but they *have* to be able to discorporate their carefully chosen and bonded assistants, as otherwise, there is no way to train them in Spirit Travel, and very difficult to train them in Spirit Dance. Spirit Combat, I suppose the shaman can train the assistant by flinging spirits at him, school of hard knocks way. Spirit Dance, I'm not sure you can even do that if you are not on the spirit plane. Spirit Travel, no way jose.
  8. Free INT as a limit on manipulation was the whole problem with the RQ3 system, so as far as I'm concerned if Free INT is used for something else, might be OK. The problem hasn't gone away in RQG, but the very simple fix I use that I gather you are interested in also, namely that you can know sorcery spells, unlike spirit magic, up to your INT, pretty much solves the problem as far as I'm concerned, making INT not Free INT the limitation. Unless your sorceror is foolish enough to learn spirit magic, a crime that bears its own punishment and properly so. Except for the Lunars, with their fondness for combining everything. I suggested in my system that Free INT might actually play a role in Lunar sorcery, though not as written in RQ3, as otherwise Lunar sorcerors would be crippled, which they definitely are not. The *other* big problem is the whole unmagical feel of the system. Bringing in the Runes as the building blocks solves that problem, in way that is actually even better than in my system, where lore knowledge is the controller. I think my system could be better for "Runequest Earth" or some such. BTW, I for one never had a problem with Duration manipulation.
  9. Having spirit magic based on INT was a dumb idea, CHA makes far more sense. RQ3 sorcery was the downfall of the system, it's single worst feature. I gather Sandy got rid of Free INT in his system, smart man. RQG sorcery would be a fine system if they just got rid of the idea that knowing sorcery spells makes you a worse sorceror. Except that as it stands a beginning sorceror is pretty worthless unless he/she is LM, but hey, this is all based in Sartar at the moment, so that sorta works. Sorcerors are evil, don't you know? The God Forgot sorcerors, the only *low level* ones other than maybe Lunars you are liable to encounter or want to run, can be powerful even at low levels provided they have Tap and use it freely and eagerly.
  10. I think being able to unproblematically pick your spells every morning is too damn easy. The idea that you can change spells right in the middle of actual game sessions I don't care for at all, even with the Meditate role and having to be out of it for three hours (why would the other players have to come to a dead stop?). Basically, I think changing sorcery spells should take a week, and be as difficult a process as learning a spirit spell, though not requiring rolls. BTW, the gains from aging are so paltry in the RQG system that starting your sorceror at age 60 and making stat loss rolls every year is probably the way to go. As for one game a year, then you have to change characters too often. Something should be done about that, and hopefully it will be when the Western pak comes out. LM sorcerors are another matter, as to do their stuff, they really don't have to be very powerful, as they essentially are scholars.
  11. I said they were authorized, didn't I? Legally, no piracy involved. Still, as far as I'm concerned, piracy. Some things are more important than legality.
  12. Yes, that's how the shaman teaches Spirit Travel and so forth. I think the Assistant Shaman bond is strong enough so that, even without hazia, a shaman can discorporate an assistant for teaching purposes and bring him onto the spirit plane. But for him/her to do that except under supervision of the master does require hazia or some such, and definitely is not advised. But that is not how the assistant shaman can Discorporate for the test, the assistant shaman has to do that on his/her own. How? If the shaman is worthy, which the master can tell (can be abstracted by that POW+CHA roll) then after 1D6+1 days of fasting, prayer and meditation, the assistant will have learned how to Discorporate, and is on the first step of the path to becoming a full shaman.
  13. I like INT minus spirit magic because spirit magic and sorcery do interfere with each other, and should. Good sorcerors despise spirit magic, and this gives a rules reason to do so. Sorcery should not interfere with sorcery mentally. But limiting your knowledge of sorcery spells by your INT just makes too much intuitive sense not to be used. OTOH, I can visualise the learning & forgetting thing as a legit way for sorcerors to deal with spells beyond their INT, but the process ought to be a whole lot harder than it is now, not something you can do through a little casual meditation. As for sorcerors getting by with all sort of weird inscribed spells and whatnot, what that means is either the GM hands it all to the players on a silver platter, or there is essentially no way for a sorceror to be of any use until around about two years of time, not game time but real time unless you game twice a week. Hard enough to develop a sorceror from scratch even without the one sorcery spell at a time silliness.
  14. We are in no way at any RQ7, as the other 4, 5 and 6 were more or less authorized pirate productions that do not deserve numbers and are of no interest. The RQ4 which at one point Chaosium was actually planning to produce, deserve the number because, even though it was cancelled when the main author got his jail sentence, was for real. RQG doesn't have a number, it's a free man! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prisoner
  15. Well, now we're in RQ5, and RQ3 is pretty much ancient history, "RQ4" even more so. Glad to know that Sandy was dissatisfied with the RQ3 sorcery rules too. Did he do something about Free INT? In our house campaign, we play with the RQ5 sorcery rules, in theory at least, as none of my players think that an RQ5 sorceror is any good until after 5-6 years of training, and none of them are that patient. One mod, namely that in my book, you can know as many sorcery spells as your INT minus spirit spells without cutting down on "free INT," which I've never liked much anyway. Though it ain't quite as annoying in RQG as in RQ3. The whole business of learning and forgetting sorcery spells to make RQG sorcery work strikes me as a silly crutch to make a foolish rule work.
  16. My impression at the time, back when I was playtesting RQ3, was that the IMHO dreadful RQ3 sorcery rules were Charlie Krank's idea not Sandy's. Could be wrong. During the long forgotten early '90s "RQ4" Chaosium project, which I am one of the few people who actually ran an RQ4 campaign out of, I wrote up my own suggested new sorcery rules, which I sent to those in charge of said long forgotten project. Though the basic idea is different, as my version bases sorcery on knowledge of the world in a rather "earth" sense, whereas RQG sorcery is based on the building blocks of Glorantha instead, namely the runes, I see the basic idea as parallel to mine. Anyway, here it is.SORCERY for RQ4.pdf
  17. Which is pretty much how feudal society in Europe worked too. Wergild is a word in the English language, not a foreign import.
  18. That puzzled me, as I didn't say that. That was Jajagappa I guess? The Romans most certainly had law and all the paraphernalia of a modern state other than anything much resembling a modern police force. Indeed in Europe law is largely based on Roman law, whereas Americans live under a modernized version of English common law, a bit different. Actually there have been plenty of societies that functioned very nicely on the basis of custom not law, Native American societies for example. The classic example being the Iroquois, who not only had no police, no laws, no jails, no courts, no judges or juries, and no private property beyond the clothes on their back and suchlike, living communally in the longhouses, but nonetheless had an extremely successful empire, often telling the French and English colonists what to do instead of the other way around, and dominating and exploiting other tribes. Evildoers were judged and punished in community meetings, the highest punishment being exile, seen by your average Iroquois brave as being a punishment worse than death.
  19. Well, there always had to be somebody or other to maintain law and order somehow, but except in France, you had nothing resembling a modern police force till the 1830s, with professional training, payscales, uniforms and all that. Describing any of the order keepers before then in many different societies as "police" is misleading. The Romans used their legions for that, in medieval times the knights on horseback did it themselves in the countryside. Urban order in Europe and the American colonies was traditionally maintained by unpaid volunteer or drafted watch patrols drawn from the citizenry. Actually, investigators is what you did have, that was the job of the sheriff, to investigate, and to deputize citizens to make actual arrests. The first actual American police force, in New York City, was formed as that wasn't enough, with gangs running rampant. So the biggest, toughest gang was given uniforms and badges, and thus the NYPD was born. Some think it hasn't changed that much from its origins, certainly Serpico thought so.
  20. Police forces are a modern invention. The British Bobbies of the 1820s or thereabouts were the first. The Bobby thing with nightsticks was the original American model too. Except in the "Wild West," for much of the 19th century, the cops in cities were sometimes the only people who "didn't" have guns.
  21. She acquired it on a Heroquest, and it's part of her forehead, so even if it was possible, I'm sure the populace would have risen up in arms led by Mayor Thom if Leika had tried to cut it out before burning the body.
  22. The Kallyr Underground emerges! Luvvit. I go back a ways too. Was one of the original playtesters for RQ3, my name is on Elder Secrets, though I only just wrote one or two things, the Black Elf writeup mostly.
  23. Thereby giving Argrath a Big Problem. Back in the '90s and into the Oughties there was a profileration of Kallyr Starbrow apocrypha on Glorantha blogs, arguing that the heroquest was a success not a failure, it was Kallyr not Argrath who lit Sartar's flame, and Argrath got the princedom by having her assassinated. Rejected as heresy by our Chaosium elders, and now gone underground. YGMV, you could go that way, but my suspicion is that is not where you are going.
  24. Which is also the version I did, I just filled in a lot of details and got my players involved. Jeff, did you read it? I tried to base the session in our campaign on the official version in the Glorantha Sourcebook word for word, and I think I succeeded. Jeff, do you agree? BTW, I did include the bit about her body not decaying, which I attributed to the efforts of the healers. Didn't make the summary.
  25. And while we're at it, I may as well post the link to two members of our party's participation in Kallyr's quest, no spoilers. A handy prequel. http://gloranthagame.pbworks.com/w/page/139626948/Sea%20Season%201626%20Kallyr's%20Quest
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