Glorion

5 hours ago, David Scott said:

There are quite a few factors affecting what goes on in New Pavis after was taken. The city was founded in 1550 and Dorasar was very smart in including Praxians on the city council. At the time the Most Respected Elder was of the Bison tribe. Spending most of her time at the Paps she took little personal interest in the city and delegated the position to one of her Khans (the "Pavis" khan). This position basically allowed the Bison to control the meat supply to the city, excluding the other tribes. This abuse came to a head in 1572 with the Pavis revolt. Fed up with the situation, a revolt against the bison was planned and other Praxian tribes were to be invited in.

This lost the city council space (and other rights) and prompted the departure of the most respected elder (aged only 79) to the Great Herd. Next in the cycle would be a morokanth and Egajia became the most respected elder.

Technically there is a space on the council for the tribes. Argrath knows this and it's part of the plan, he's going to reveal himself as Dorasar's rightful heir so isn't going to destroy the city (harrek is not here, phew)  The Praxians are allowed revenge against the Lunars, but against New Pavisites they are told to control themselves. This of course is hard to control and there are civilian casualties and properties are burnt and looted, mostly Lunar sympathisers. Prominent targets are the Lunar temples, the governor's office and barracks. Pavis himself appears at the main temple and greets Argrath, so that is untouched. I'd have those major locations destroyed and the people inside murdered. The rest of the city suffers collateral damage - fire spreads, things are trampled, people injured - maybe 10% of the population are affected, 1% of the non-lunar population die. It would be straight forward to get a map of the city knock out the North Wall, damaging the area around it and mark the three other damaged areas.

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.

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.

10 hours ago, Jeff said:

Delete the word "raping" - if we ever reissue this, that is one of the several small edits we would make to the story. 

And also, that is not a description of what is going on - it is what Tashali fears is going on.

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.

1 hour ago, styopa said:

I can completely see that.  I utterly agree that RQ2 carried the spirit of "what Glorantha should be" into the game more substantially than the otherwise-sterile RQ3.  That makes perfect sense knowing Greg.

At the same time, people have different priorities.  I don't know that Greg cared a great deal about things like mathematical consistently, repeatability of results, precision: he was a "big story" guy not a "make sure the jots and tittles all line up" person.  He certainly wasn't a wargamer (not intended to be a slam, that's just on observation) except insofar as it let us experience the grand sweep of events in Dragon Pass and Nomad Gods in a PARTICIPATORY way that wasn't other wise available in 1970. 

That said, I have many, many times wondered why in the heck Perrin's crunchy quasi-realism ended up connected to Glorantha.  They seem like entirely alien bedfellows.  When Robin's HQ system came out- THAT, indeed, seemed to better encompass not just the Campbellian approach that seemed to underlay everything Greg wrote, but the story-driven narrative that are the (lack of) gears behind the entire Gloranthan storyline.

I admit over the years I have always seen that tension - between an empirically-based, mechanics-driven rules system that is so perfectly suited to simulationism, underlying a subjective, impressionist, imprecise GAME - and even wondered why RQG went back to RQ2 in the first place instead of HQ.  It's like putting a pair of old rigid hobnail boots on someone at burning man who'd be much more comfortable barefoot or in moccasins.  

EDIT: these are my IMPRESSIONS of Greg.  I was merely an acquaintance, we'd corresponded a bit on Gloranthan weather and maps, occasionally over the years.  I'd say my "know what Greg was like" skill was certainly 15% or lower.  Maybe I was totally misreading the guy, others would know vastly better than I do.

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.

1 hour ago, styopa said:

I'm not sure about that comparison.  RQ3 selling in the mid 1980s at the PEAK of D&D's early apogee, vs RQ2 in a totally different market environment?  AH's utter bungling of well, everything having to do with marketing, pricing, boxing, product values, target buyers, I'm not sure I can list all the places AH failed.

In simple raw numbers?  D&D did better than RQ3 OR RQ2...I don't think anyone wants to go there.

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.

20 minutes ago, Jeff said:

If I recall there wasn't an orgy of rape when the City of Wonders was sacked in Phyllis's story  - plenty of sacking, looting, and causal violence but not rape. Rape is very uncommon in Glorantha outside of the broo. There's plenty of gods that have lots to say on that subject - Ernalda, Orlanth, Storm Bull, Yelmalio, Babeester Gor, Maran Gor, Gorgorma, to say a few. And in a place like the City of Wonders, such an action might trigger guardians that nobody wants to awaken. Better to kill civilians, take their stuff, and light the city on fire.

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

2 hours ago, Rob Darvall said:

"A Tale to Tell" in Shadows on the Borderland

Granted it's Ogres not Broo but failing to punish a rape results in the extinction of the whole community or its conversion to chaos if the PCs fail.

As a side note does anyone know if Jon Quaife was influenced by the Nick Enright play Black Rock?

 "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.

2 hours ago, Rob Darvall said:

"A Tale to Tell" in Shadows on the Borderland

Granted it's Ogres not Broo but failing to punish a rape results in the extinction of the whole community or its conversion to chaos if the PCs fail.

As a side note does anyone know if Jon Quaife was influenced by the Nick Enright play Black Rock?

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.

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?

6 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Free INT was alright, although it did limit sorcerers based on INT something that they couldn't improve.  Sandy Peterson did do a alternate set of Sorcery rules that  helped with some aspects. I think the basic problem was that R Q 2 didn't have any sort of sorcery to draw upon. So the RQ3 Sorcery  system was sort of used and ignored by most people and was sort of the go to  for many new players coming from games like D&D.

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.

1 hour ago, Kloster said:

It worked (and I liked it). It was calculation heavy, though less than RQG's one, but it worked. It's main problem was that it was bland.

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.

3 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

I'm pleased to see the Praxian parallels to post-Soviet occupied Afghanistan keep piling up!

!i!

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.

10 minutes ago, Jeff said:

The Coders are out of Pavis by late in 1621. They have bigger and better things to do.

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.

1 minute ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Indeed (cue the question), and where are the Coders?

Perfect! The coders it is! Or at least one or two of them, seems unlikely they would all survive.

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.)

15 hours ago, jajagappa said:

I'm sure they do. Rape transforms rapists into broo. Broo = Chaos. And even if it's not visible, the act may register to their Sense Chaos.

Nor will the Earth approve, and that includes Eiritha. Whether through direct curses or Babeester Gor Axe Maidens, they, too, will seek out offenders.

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.

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.

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.

21 hours ago, Joerg said:

As Harald pointed out in the Pavis thread, you will get answers from Robin Laws's books and the presentation at this year's Kraken.

I have been made privy to a number of metaplot ideas early in the Hero Wars period that were meant to forecast shadows into the Hero Wars development. Most of these were included into the Guide in the "Prophecies of the Hero Wars" sections, others haven't seen mention there. One thing these developments did not deliver was concrete years, though, or even much of a temporal sequence between different developments affecting the same region.

At the time, this was meant to allow player and GM agency in how these greater events would affect their Glorantha campaigns.

Basically, the Gloranthan meta-plot means that things are brewing up. But which effect is going to win? Will Sheng's renewed empire turn the Lunar Empire into a grassland, or will the aldryami reforestation dominate? Or do the human agricultural civilizations manage to fend off either attack on their existence with the agency of the player characters or major campaign NPCs?

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. 

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).

19 hours ago, Glorion said:

I do now. Thanks!

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?

I do now. Thanks!

On 10/24/2019 at 2:00 PM, DerKrieger said:

I think having certain main events be essentially unavoidable with alterations depending on what triggers them (Sartarite rebellion essentially guaranteed though who wins and what each sides strength is would depend on the PCs and whose side they are on) and then loading the book up with history, factions, and events from the de-facto timeline as well as tips on how to alter them would be more than enough. People break things all the time and I know for a fact some people ran Pendragon campaign's where the players were not only loyal knights of the round table but important lord's as well, some having taken power after certain events throw Logres into chaos. As long as the campaign gives us information about the de facto timeline as well as information about what fuels the events it makes it easier to understand them and how to change them based on your group's personal playthrough. 

Like oh we were supposed to be fighting this battle to invade the Lunar heartlands but since my players defeated the rebellion and join the Lunars instead we are going to invade Esrolia to add it to the Empire.

Give us the main events and details about the world and main players at each point and we can easily make our own changes from there where necessary. If you know an important NPC's child is meant to rise to power after their death but the player's kill that NPC early welp time for a child with a hunger for revenge to bide their time as a regnant holds power in the meantime.

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?

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!

On 11/10/2019 at 9:33 PM, Crel said:

Yep. Speaking as a GM using, more or less, RQG's magic rules as written, it can be a right pain in the arse. I've printed out the one-page calendar from the PDF in the GM's Screen Pack for each player, and that does help them keep track of their holy days, somewhat.

The other challenge is that if an adventurer is trying to optimize their access to and use of Rune magic, then the "one adventure per season" paradigm RQG encourages breaks down. For example, I can't just narrate "Weeks pass, and it grows hot as the world turns to Fire Season, when a mysterious courier comes to Pavis..." because my Issaries merchant player will go "hang on hang on hang on! I've got weekly holy days, and I want to be poking around each week to see if there's any new opportunities to Spell Trade with my bonus 1D6 Rune points on those weeks!"

So my game process at-table has instead become something more like "Death Week, anyone doing something? Okay, moving to Harmony Week," etc. between adventures.

@weasel fierce My old RQ3 game didn't really use much Rune magic—I was a sorcerer-knight, and we had a couple other sorcerers and a shaman for support, plus one lonely theist—but I'd say the play experience of using Rune points is really fun. It's both strong and flexible. However, I do agree that something a bit more slow and granular than RQG would best fit my taste, both in terms of starting skills as well as in terms of magic access.

In hindsight, if I were to re-start a campaign with new rules & norms, I'd really like to try implementing some of @soltakss's suggestions above. Probably have adventurers start without "free" Rune points, but eligible to become initiates if they meet the skill requirements. Probably have to buy the common spells (maybe each cult would have one or two for free, instead of the whole gamut), and initiates only able to replenish their Rune points on a seasonal holy day.

Fortunately, if you like the RQ3 engine better (and I do as well in several places) IMHO it's not too difficult to tack RQG's Rune magic and cults on top. I'm not quite convinced that D100 games are as modular as some folks claim they are, but in this case it seems pretty cut-and-paste to me. If, of course, that would suit your table and Your Glorantha.

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.