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Glorion

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  1. Glorion

    Pavis!

    Thanks David, that gives me some overall guidelines I need to have, given that the party is headed to Pavis and two of the PC's were along for the ride when Lunar rule in Pavis was overthrown. I will make it nastier however, as IMHO, sure Argrath got Jaldon to promise to leave the non-Lunar citizens alone, but in the heat of the moment that was disregarded by the Pavis hating Praxians, with Jaldon looking the other way. The quote I found in KOS from the account of "Argrath in Pavis," the only account of Argrath that rates as what historians call a "primary source," matches that very well. More like 10% of the non-Lunar population dying I would say, and 30% having their possessions looted or destroyed. Fortunately, they all passed out dead drunk after two days and were stuck groggily on their bisonbacks and driven off to fight the Lunars when they woke up. And Harrek's berserkers too, who weren't listening to anybody. BTW, the reason I raised the rape issue is because in my version, it was horrible enough that the Lunar underground is fairly popular with the remaining citizenry, despite Halcyon's crimes, and not just with any surviving Lunars or ex-Lunars, to say nothing of the slaves. I want it to be a situation where this is natural, and even my Orlanthi PC's will be wondering if they should be sympathising with the Lunar underground for moral reasons. Rape is in fact not necessary for that.
  2. Glorion

    Pavis!

    I want to make it perfectly clear that I am *happy* that rape is eliminated from Glorantha except for chaotics, for the reasons Qizilbashwoman stated. As we all know, fantasy gaming is much too male dominated. I'm very concerned about consistency and accuracy, but other considerations are more important. It would be nice I suppose if torture and mass murder could be eliminated too, but that would definitely not be Gloranthan. Those are practices that people of all possible genders have engaged in, so there is nothing specifically anti-female about having them in one's fantasy setting.
  3. Glorion

    Pavis!

    OK fine. You'll need to make another deletion in the RQ book. p. 407: Where our friend Gunda, recognizing Vasana et.al. as former battle companions, agrees to ransom them, "likely preventing us from becoming sport for the other Wolf Pirates." That is a standard euphemism for rape, and that is how most readers will read it as written.
  4. I think that's about right, Heroquest is more like Greg's original vision of a game than RQ3, certainly. But let's face it, Heroquest just isn't that popular as a game, the game system is just too vague, slippery and annoying to get far. So Greg in his last years wanted to bring back RQ2 and make it more runic and bring into it more of the spirit he wanted , as a sensible compromise. Sales figures seem to indicate that he was right.
  5. D&D got the monopoly of non Gloranthan fantasy gaming. Quite possibly if Runequest had *initially* abandoned Glorantha all the way back in the '70s, it could have gone head to head with D&D. I ran into one of the original founders of RQ at the last Dundracon, forget his name, and he said he'd argued for that. Once fantasy gaming became identified with D&D in the public mind, the Avalon Hill-Chaosium attempt to push Runequest as a generic system was trying to close the barn door after the horse had been stolen, and was doomed. The appeal of Runequest is Glorantha. Without Glorantha, Runequest can never go anywhere, except as just another of the myriad niche games out there that come and go. The tie in with Avalon Hill only meant that RQ would end up as one of the least popular of the niche games, and die quicker.
  6. Glorion

    Pavis!

    Page 16, "robbing, raping and murdering." The entire population gets wiped out.
  7. Glorion

    Pavis!

    "A Tale to Tell" is about Muriah the witch queen and her band of broos. You are thinking of "Black Rock Village," where an unpunished rape and the death of the victim leads to the birth of a succubus, not the conversion of anyone, including the rapist, into broos. She masters the community and bends it to her will, but that can be broken by the PC's in normal fashions, not through magically purging the community of chaos.
  8. Glorion

    Pavis!

    Doesn't fit too well with the City of Wonders story, which actually had Greg Stafford's seal of approval, as expressed in the intro he wrote. Maybe Harrek's Berserks have some sort of unusual ability to get away with rape for magical reasons. They are pretty universally loathed.
  9. Glorion

    Pavis!

    Hm. Just read for the first time in many years the account of the sacking of the City of Wonders in "Gloranthan Visions." Which one of my PC's, a Vingan in fact, participated in. According to it, Harrek's berserks engaged in an orgy of raping and murder of the unsuspecting civilian population, basically killing all of them. Maybe Harrek's berserks were just less worried than Sartarites about turning into broos? Also, what about slaves? If a slave "voluntarily" provides sexual services in return for better food, less hard work, and bathing facilities, will the owner turn into a broo? Is sexual slavery a thing on Glorantha?
  10. I actually wrote up my own sorcery system, the idea being that the limitation on sorcery wouldn't be "Free Int," but knowledge. Want to cast "Shape Metal"? What's your Metal Lore? Want to cast "Control Human"? What's your Human Lore? The RQG system has a cousinship to that, one of the reasons I like it. And, with the emphasis on runes, more Gloranthan than my idea, which would be better for nonGloranthan runequest perhaps.
  11. The blandness was annoying, but what I hated about it was "free INT." Modified into something better with RQG, though I as GM take that further. The calculation heaviness is OK in my book, sorcery really ought to be like that.
  12. Glorion

    Pavis!

    Ian: given all the awful things that have happened to Afghanistan since, Afghan nostalgia, at least in the cities, for the good old days under Soviet occupation has become a definite if not universal thing.
  13. Glorion

    Pavis!

    Ah, too bad. There are plenty of top Lunars in the old RQ2 pack who might have managed to escape and go underground, I'll pick a couple, probably one good guy and one bad guy. That RQ2 to RQG is an easier conversion is nice also.
  14. Glorion

    Pavis!

    Perfect! The coders it is! Or at least one or two of them, seems unlikely they would all survive.
  15. Jajagappa: Good to know they didn't just automatically execute all Lunar officials. But what I'm really interested in, as my adventurers are *not* headed to Pavis for Big Rubble looting purposes, is what happens to the civilian population, Pavisite, Lunar and otherwise. Whatever Argrath's intentions were, it seems like Jaldon and his boys and girls were not terribly interested in what Argrath had to say about what to do when the walls went down, at least until they all passed out dead drunk. Even some of the "New Teeth," Argrath's followers in Pavis, narrowly escaped being killed. (BTW, my impression is that in RQG at least the idea of "multiple Argraths" has been abandoned. I visualize Argrath zipping around with Orlanthi movement magic to be able to almost be in multiple places at the same time.)
  16. Glorion

    Pavis!

    That's interesting. Not in any published materials as far as I know, but sounds reasonable, I can go with that. So no rapes, but plenty of looting, burning and killing.
  17. Glorion

    Pavis!

    Joerg: Glad for the number computation. If you have 800 Lunar civilians in the New Pavis area, that is a significant segment of the population. How many would actually be in New Pavis? My impression from the old Pavis pak was quite a few, maybe 400 or so? Most of whom are not initiates of anything, being as only some 10% of the population are initiates in Glorantha in general, so not necessarily executed on the spot if they pledge allegiance to Argrath and renounce Lunar ways. But then you have those two days of sacking by Praxian barbarians until Argrath gets them to go off and get their butts stomped at Moonbroth, who probably if anything find abusing, looting and killing Pavisites more entertaining than killing Lunars. Be it noted that according to the RQG book, and mine is an RQG campaign, Pavis falls to Jaldon and Argrath in 1625 not 1624, and Vasana etc. are there for that. I'm still waiting to hear more, but at this point I'm going to assume that you have a disaffected but thoroughly intimidated population, and a Lunar underground based somewhere in the Big Rubble which, after the sacking, has a fair amount of popularity among the Pavisites and among the allegedly now loyal ex Lunars, patiently waiting for Argrath and his army to leave so they can go back to being Lunars. With Gimgim having been executed, said Lunar underground is probably led by less repulsive sorts, and is probably internally divided as to how to orient to all that "unhealed chaos" in the rubble... With Jaldon dead again, the Praxians in Argrath's army in Pavis now are probably more willing to listen when Argrath tells them to behave themselves, but they still don't care for Pavisites.
  18. Glorion

    Pavis!

    Probably it is true that the Storm Bulls in Argrath's entourage did not approve of rape, being from the Sartarite Orlanth/Ernalda culture where it is a major no no. But the way I read KOS, it was basically Jaldon and his Praxian barbarians, who had no such compunctions, who were the ones who really took Pavis, and they hated Pavisites longer and a lot more than they hated Lunars. (Whether Praxian Storm Bulls share Sartarite values as to rape is an interesting question. They are to a considerable degree based on Native American cultures, which are indeed very much down on rape). Plus a contingent of Harrek's berserkers, just back from pillaging the City of Wonders. Argrath may not have approved of massive destruction, rape and killing, but I doubt had the ability, whether or not he had the inclination, to stop it. And what I did get out of the Kraken video, from what little was said about New Pavis, was that Argrath's rule in Pavis was a lot worse than Sor-eel's, and not necessarily any better than Halcyon's. If anything worse, as Halcyon at least had some vague notion of how to run a city, and saw it as his job.
  19. As I said in that thread, as the presentation was about the Big Rubble and not about Pavis, it said just enough to make me wonder more. What books would you referring to? Some Heroquest thing or other? I have Gateway to Pavis, but that stops cold before 1625. What I really want to know is just what Argrath and the Praxians did to Pavis, and for that there are only unclear hints. Except that it sounds real real bad, and maybe some of my players will start wondering if the Lunars are really so bad after all if that's the version I give them.
  20. Glorion

    Pavis!

    Jajagappa: That's helpful, and I did read KOS. But what I'm not clear on is what about the quite significant Lunar population. And the Praxians hate everything about Pavis and now are in charge, and it also says in KOS it stays at one point that they sacked the city. For those unfamiliar with the Thirty Years War and such, "sacking" a city means an episode, generally a few days long, when soldiers take everything they want, burn or otherwise destroy anything they don't want which they find amusing, and do whatever they find amusing with the population, which always includes rape and murder, and usually means wiping out a significant fraction of the civilian population. Is that what happened, do you think? When my adventurers hit Pavis, if they hear about that they won't like it. A soft hearted bunch I suppose. They may not be too thrilled about Argrath becoming King of Sartar, which could be interesting. (One player who looked at some of the Glorantha websites has already said he has real doubts about this Argrath character).
  21. Glorion

    Pavis!

    Watching the video was not as helpful as I would have liked, as it was basically all about the Big Rubble, not Pavis. What little was said about Pavis made it sound like you had a bunch of exceedingly oppressive Praxian barbarians, wolf pirates and Argrath fans "oppressing and looting" the population, after "everyone with a bad name" had been horribly killed, and you have a highly incompetent new regime who have no idea how to run the city properly, and really don't care. What I get out of that is thinking that the actual Pavisites are now looking back at Lunar rule as a lost golden age, with former Lunar civilians now pretending to be loyal to Argrath and eagerly awaiting the day he and his barbarians leave, at which point the Lunar underground will lead them and the actual Pavisites in a popular rebellion that will sweep anything related to Argrath or the Praxians out of the city. Sound about right?
  22. Glorion

    Pavis!

    I do now. Thanks!
  23. Yeah, that's what I'd like to see ASAP, some sort of timeline GM's can use for the Big Events, changing them if they feel like it, but doing so consciously not accidentally. I started a separate thread about Pavis, as in my campaign my players are going to hit Pavis at about the same time Vasana et.al. start wandering Prax. I'd like to know at least in general terms what Pavis was like after it was either liberated or wrecked by Argrath and Jaldon Goldentooth. What is it like now? A happy liberated city or smoking ruins with Lunars and Pavisites being hunted down and abused by angry Praxian barbarians? KOS can be read either way. I'm guessing somewhere in between, and it would be nice to know at least in very general terms what Argrath's role was in all that, and I'm thinking folk at Chaosium at least know that much. Comments? Thoughts?
  24. Atgxtg: Yeah, the failure to put out what the players wanted, with everything in the sun coming out *except* what everyone wanted, namely Dragon Pass material, was probably the single thing which killed RQ3. And then there was that lousy artwork... That was actually fixed more or less in the Hero Wars era (does anyone still play that thing?). A lot of the Hero Wars material is usable one way or another, and RQG did understand just what to publish first. Was RQ3 playable? Sure it was, I played it, GM'ed it occasionally, and enjoyed it, though not as much as RQ2. Sure a lot better than crap like D&D!
  25. I love the calendar of holy days, exactly as it makes time and place important and something for the players to think about. It does mean that you don't want to do the old RQ2 and RQ3 thing of having parties assembled out of bunches of different cults and backgrounds who really all ought to hate each other instead of adventure together, but that's all to the good. A Sartarite party for example really ought to be made up solely or almost solely of characters from the Orlanth/Ernalda pantheon, with most of the characters being Orlanth or Ernalda, which both simplifies everything and is very realistic. Relatedly, we handle seasons a bit differently, as the one area where I see the RQG rules as definitely broken is as to training, which the RQG ruleset makes far too difficult, indeed downright impossible unless everyone in the party wants to train at the same time. I've worked up a complex variant which I will not bore you all with, but let it be said that in my game, training, research, acquiring spells, various things to roleplay that don't necessarily involved combat or a quest as such but are more freeform, do take place in the off weeks of seasons. (And no, I don't mechanically count off the weeks necessarily.) I don't make training as foolishly easy as it is in other systems, but not as virtually impossible as in RQG. Realistically, training in the Bronze Age rarely took the form of trainer and student doing nothing else but train and be trained for an entire season. (The "once a week at the temple for POW training" is a rare moment of common sense in the current ruleset.) I've tried to come up with more realistic training rules.
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