pachristian

Gloranthans - Players arrive in the vicinity of the Sun Dome around twilight; Yelmalio's sacred time. From the dome, a masculine chorus chants the evening song; it is a somewhat melancholy chant, about duty, honor, and all those things so precious to Yelmalians. This is the evening chant, sacred to Yelmalio, and a reminder to his followers of their god's eternal watch. In some areas, it is then followed by a female song, praising the starts (Yelorna's chant). The chant is done a cappella. A yelmalian out in the field might sing it himself, as a way of reaffirming his faith while on the road. Now, my poets and authors: What are the words to the chant? Anybody here ready to take up the challenge to write some?

Serve Bisonburgers as food. You can get ground bison at better supermarkets.

Own it. Read it. Love it. Strong focus on Mycenaean gear, as mentioned above, but it can really add vermisilitude to your battle scenes. but I'm a history buff, who tries to make things realistic.

Got my wish!

Dude - When that was written typewriters were cutting-edge technology. I loved that game, and will be watching really closely for the pdf.

The Kushans look really good. And based on the Guide comments, that would be the design to use. However, they don't seem to be available in 28mm. I found a company that does Kushans (http://khurasanminiatures.tripod.com/kushan.html) but they're 15mm....Parthians are available in 28mm (https://aventineminiatures.co.uk/parthians/) or (https://www.essexminiatures.co.uk/collections/25mm-ancient-parthians) or (http://www.oldgloryminiatures.com/products.asp?cat=152). But most of these seem to be in 25mm scale - believe me these do NOT look right next to 28mm figures. Sarmatians are available from several manufacturers (https://us-store.warlordgames.com/collections/dacians, and https://www.wargamesfoundry.com/collections/dacians-and-sarmatians for example). I am not advocating one miniatures company or another - I'm just putting up some links for anyone else who is in the same boat I am. The only lines of Indian figures that are (apparently) reliable all seem to be from the India Mutiny. The "look" isn't quite right. I think I could use Sarmatians and build up their collars with greens stuff. I'll forget the Falxmen, and possibly use Persian Immortals, for the armored foot troops (and swap out the shields). I'm not doing an army; I just need to be able to field a squad against some PC's and their followers. And don't worry about the picture sizes! Makes it easier for my weak old eyes to see.

Well, this is more detailed that my breakdown!

Thank you, Joerg and Mankcam. Those are some good suggestions. There is a strong "they're not feudal knights" bias in Gloranthan writing these days. Which is not a bad thing, but if you use Eastern Med look for central Glorantha, India/SE Asia for Teshnos, and China for Kralorela, it doesn't leave much to fall back on. I've pigeonholed Scythians for Pentans, so I don't want to use those. I like the idea of using Macedonians for Westerners (keeping in mind there's a lot of variety in westerners. Many companies make Macedonians, so it's not too hard to find miniatures. Right now, the best bet for me is Dacians & Sarmations; which are sort of your pre-Byzantine Byzantine forces. They have a good, slightly exotic, look. And the description of Ethilrist and his men using a two-handed spear/lance from horseback is very much a Sarmation style of fighting. An alternative is Arthurian British, using historic miniatures from the 5th century. This looks a lot like your Gaul or Gothic cavalry and infantry - not quite Germanic, but close. The trick, for me, is to pick a consistent look, so that units can be identified as being from a particular culture, and so players can identify troops and opponents on the table.

I'm looking to run a game set in Safelester. I'm trying to find a "look and feel" for miniatures for the westerners. I use Ancient Germans (and some Gauls) for Orlanthi, Babylonians/Assyrians for Lunars (not needed for this game), Classic Era Greeks for the Sun Dome Temple. What seems appropriate for the west? Mostly I need bandits and soldiers from the city-states, but Seshnegi warriors and wizards would be useful as well. Any suggestions?

Awesome. Eagerly awaiting mounted (and dismounted) Praxian as well.

Has anyone looked at/talked to any of the companies that make replica coins for fantasy games? I like physical props at my table, and would make good use of some coins. There are several companies out there that do decent replicas at reasonable prices. Anyone else?

There are a number of tropes that have become so solidly embedded in gaming that many people assume they are universal. The D&D tropes are firmly imbedded in most computer rpg's and MMO's, and most role-playing games. These tropes include; a division between sorcerous and clerical magic, clerics as healers, dungeon crawling, and level advancement (i.e. your character gaining new and more impressive abilities as you play). Mythras does all of these things just fine, but Classic Fantasy gives you the style of play that encourages and builds on these tropes. But serious talk aside, I've found that I can run my classic AD&D adventures, and even my Goodman Games Dungeon Crawl Classics (3rd Ed.) adventures, with minimal conversion. "Minimal conversion" in this case really means: "Knowing the module well enough to run it for a group, and just plugging in CF numbers where needed." As a general rule, I've only needed to convert the monsters with individual names. Call it one extra hour of prep work, max, for a game that runs 1 to 3 sessions. One of my current projects is converting Al-Qadim kits, magic, and monsters to Classic Fantasy. Now THAT's going to be a golden voyage!

I've never found hit locations to be a problem (except in the last group I was in we rolled a LOT of "left leg" hit locations). What advantage do you see in removing that rule? Do you have players or a GM who are using that as their excuse to not play Mythras? I mean, it's just one extra die roll on a non-parried hit. Now in Classic RQ, you tracked both overall hits AND hits in location, but I never had a problem with that, either.

Keep in mind that "unbalancing" only applies if only one side has access to the ability. You shift the balance, but you only unbalance if you do not give the other side equal abilities. For example, the last Mongoose RQ2 game I was in, the GM found a "broken rule" that vastly increased the combat magical power of some of the PC's. However, none of the NPC's we fought ever used that rule against us. The GM had created an imbalance that vastly favored PC's who used a combination of Divine and Common magic. I will add that combat was such a small part of that campaign that we really didn't care about it.

I can't speak for charms. In classic RQ, Battle Magic spells (basically what Mythras calls Folk Magic now) were automatic. You spent some magic points, and the spell activated. However, you were very limited as to how many spells you could know: You could only know points of spells equal to your INT. So if you had an INT of 13; You could have Bladesharp-4, Heal-4, Ignite (1), and Protection-4, and that was it. Once learned, that was your spell list. To get a spell out of your head took help from a shaman or priest. A matrix was a way to know additional spells. A matrix stored the spell knowledge for you; so for example if had a matrix for "Detect Silver" you had access to that spell, in addition to what was in your head. The other advantage of a matrix was that it could be passed around the party, and anyone could use it. Given other aspects of the game, a Healing-6 matrix was often an early found item (and a very valuable one). RQ3 (Avalon Hill RQ) expanded on the matrix idea; with matrices that did things like store magic points, and so on. You could easily leverage a matrix into Mythras: Allow it to hold a spell, and provide a skill percentage in Folk Magic, which it uses instead of the user's skill.

Here is a link to a discussion from the Design Mechanism bulletin boards: http://designmechanism.freeforums.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1382 We discussed how magic was used in the Conan stories, and casting time and so on.

For progressive folk magic, grab a copy of Legend, also by Nash & Whittaker, from Mongoose publishing. The rules plug right into Mythras. The book will only set you back $1 on www.drivethrurpg. I've used Mythras in Glorantha for a couple of games. Classic RQ in Glorantha has everyone knowing a small amount of low-powered magic, which is easy to use and readily available. Also, cults overlap professions and daily life.I just use the folk magic as is. It fills the need. I have three rules standards for Mythras in Glorantha: 1) Magic points recover at a rate equal to Luck points every 3 hours. 2) For most cultures, Folk Magic is a standard skill, and starts as base+40%. Characters have 1 folk magic spell per 20% skill, from their profession. 3) As part of your profession, westerners get Invoke (career grimoire) at base. Others get either Binding or Devotion and Exhort (career god), at base. These skills are in addition to your other advanced skills, and can be raised as career skills. Yes, this system heavily favors the Theists. In the Avalon Hill RQ material, the authors explain that non-wizards are not taught to manipulate magic. Characters get one spirit, spell, or miracle per 20% in the appropriate skill. I really haven't addressed the runes as specific game effects. My plan is to use binding yourself to runes as the mechanism for gaining cult Gifts.

Check out Cults of Prax. In the fiction linked to the cult of Daka Fal, the hero gets a use-use item that allows him to summon a a baboon ancestor, once. Very similar idea. So, yeah, I'd say your idea is both Gloranthan, and game-appropriate.

As you're getting a Mythras game going, here's some tips from our experiences: 1) The MRQ2 stuff will plug in directly. There's a few skill name changes but that's about it. The biggest flaw in the cults book is that the relevant magic skills (Folk Magic, Exhort, Devotion, Invoke, and Shaping) are not listed as cult skills. You'll want to rewrite this, otherwise your players need two extra cult skills for every level of advancement. 2) My friend, who ran the MRQ2 campaign, characterized the system as "it moves you to the sweet spot (skills of 70% - 90%) as fast as possible and then keeps you there". He was correct. As you are using a points improvement system, instead of check marks, remember that players will have to pick and choose their skills very carefully. As he likes a "characters steadily advance" game, 7 IP per session, but gave very little training time. (it averaged out to about 1 week per game session) That will not work with rules as written in Mythras; If doing it again we'd give out ~5 IP per session and enough training to average out to about 3 weeks training time per session. 4) Nash & Whittaker's work is written from a pulp point of view; magic is scarce in their default setting. In classic RQ, magic advances in a parallel path to the rest of the character development: Your POW goes up, and you can buy spells or bind spirits in addition to all of your other training. Mythras, as in MRQ2, magic and training are an either-or proposition: The time and IP you spend on magic is instead of other skills or attributes. Just be aware of that key difference when adapting classic RQ material, or managing player expectations. Magic will be less common than in classic RQ. 5) To adapt Mythras to Glorantha, I use the "Common Folk Magic" rule. I also allow a character to take the magic skills appropriate to their culture as additional professional skills in the Career phase of character development. So if you choose "Soldier" as a career, you can choose a war god, such as Humakt, and take Devotion (Humakt) and Exhort as professional skills in addition to your standard 3 professional skills. You get these magic skills at base, and can raise them like any other skills.

I quite liked Mongoose RQ2, and Nash & Whittaker have continued to improve their work. And I like combat maneuvers. More effort is required on the part of player, but the maneuvers give a much more satisfying combat scene. But this is not about the game system. A friend of mine ran a (sadly short lived) second age game. He liked the setting, as did we. Because of the size of empires in the second age, it was easy to set a game entirely within one empire, and then ignore mass politics. In a Classic RQ game (in the classic setting) your game pretty much has to be pro-Empire or anti-Empire: Dragon pass is the setting for the hero wars, and everybody ends up on one side or the other. Playing in the second age was a way to avoid a game where you had to choose a side. We were adventurers in the wild parts of civilization; but we weren't being drawn into a war. The Cults book is close enough to the classic material that you could plug things in pretty well. I liked the blend of spirit magic/divine magic that characterized the Praxian cults. If you use MRQ2, Legend, RQ6, or Mythras, these write-ups will give you a solid basis for adapting Glorantha to your game. They have flaws, but they work. A(nother) friend of mine particularly liked the variant abilities of the trickster, and made good use of it in a campaign (set in the 3rd age, but using MRQ2). I played a shaman of Kolat, and it was fun to have an Orlanthi shaman in party (shamans in the Nash-Whitaker RQ line can be very different from shamans in classic RQ). The Abiding Book gave us something completely new. The book showed how financial organizations could be set up as "cults". Your character gets a dividend in money, instead of spells or mystic powers. I thought the discussion of the logic and philosophy of the Jrustali was very well written, and using the understanding of the culture's paradigm made it easy to adapt it to ruins, lost manuscripts, and other treasures of the lost age. The Empires book is worth getting if you need to model any sort of political storyline. It allows you to play whole kingdoms as characters. Use it for a backdrop. I've used it to simulate the Safelstern city-states. The Arms and Equipment book had some truly silly equipment, but it gave some very good rules for Enchanting, and for power crystals - something that was lacking in the earlier MRQ books. Divine casters "Enchant" by going on a hero quest, and bringing back a divinely inspired item. The rules worked, and made the items special, without being overwhelming. One thing they did not allow you to do was create volumes of permanent magic items.

Any news?

Some Mechanics Points: Mythras works well, and the rules are very tightly written: There is not a lot of "I exploit this rule and there is nothing you can do about it" wiggle room. As a GM you need to be aware of the rules for adjusting skill difficulty - using them properly helps keep the players feeling effective. You get less advantage by playing the cut-off points then you would in Classic Runequest, so there's less tendency for everyone to make the same character. Playing the combat system requires some commitment - in imagination. It takes players awhile to get used to the idea of using combat effects well. Once they do, combat goes very quickly. Combat is very detailed. Mythras avoids two major problems in many game's combat systems: These are the D&D "hack at it until you wear down its hit points" issue, and the Classic RQ "one hit takes my leg off, again" issue. It's very well balanced. Characters start out fairly skilled, but advancement is slow. This works well, as a new character can be created as a beginner and not feel overwhelmed by experienced characters. However, players who expect D&D / Pathfinder's "Zero to Hero in Just Seven Days" (just to provide a horrible movie mashup) will be frustrated. I view the slow advancement as a strength of the system: It means characters can be played a long time. I will also add that the limited experience awards mean that your character will probably specialize in a handful of skills. You can, of course, award more points / training per session. In Classic Runequest, magic advances in a parallel path to skills and attributes: In other words, everyone adds magic in addition to everything else they train in. In Mythras, you commit the same points to training magic that you would to training anything else; so it becomes an either-or proposition. The amount of support for the system is steadily growing: The Design Mechanism publishes a monthly scenario, and Old Bones Publishing has put out a couple of adventures. Mythras is my preferred go-to game. I like the flexibility, I like the pulp-action feel of the combat and adventures. The supplementary books are very good (I use a variant of Monster Island for many games). There is a friendly and active on-line community.

We should also consider the idea that Pavis just isn't that important. In the political scheme of things, my understanding was that the Lunar Empire invaded Prax only because they failed to take the Holy Country; and set up to invade the Holy Country by sea. They took Prax. They took Pavis. They arranged for the invasion of the Holy Country by Sea (a two-pronged assault by land and sea). And once they had Esrolila and Heartland, Pavis became a political dead end (again). From an imperial point of view it was a curiosity, and a dumping ground, but nothing more. The "stalling" that the temple of Pavis did to avoid marrying into the lunar pantheon worked, because nobody in the empire who mattered cared. Poor Tala Errio! Through all kinds of rationalization she is aware that she's been shunted off to the end of the civilization for a project that, despite it's grand name and presumptions, is a throw-away. As for Pavis himself, I rather like the idea that he was a failed hero quester. People go to the frontier for all kinds of reasons - and one of them is that they can't hack it in competition with the big kids of civilization. So, impressive as Pavis' achievements were, maybe they just weren't up to snuff against the real heroes of the world.

I generally regard Inara Serra, from the TV show Firefly as the model for a Uleria priestess. I've also said to players that the difference between a poor streetwalker and a Uleria priestess (or priest) is the difference between a thug with a knife and a Humakti rune lord. It gets the point across.

I can find all sorts of references for the year that the first battle of Moonbroth occurred (1610), but I don't see any reference to what season. My guess would be that the lunar government would avoid fire season (too hot), and they'd have trouble bringing in regular troops in Sea or Earth season (as their auxiliaries would not be available to support the invasion, due to being needed for planting and harvest. Storm Season might be out due to the air gods being strongest then... That leaves Dark Season. Possibly right after the harvest in Sartar is in. But at that time of year, Prax is at it's driest, and that would give the natives the advantage. But is there an official date? Young soldiers study tactics. Experienced soldiers study strategy. Wise soldiers study logistics. - unknown