daskindt

That might be the intent, but that is clearly not “twice the damage it would take normally.” I understood that the chart was the intent, but it confused my players reading the incorrect text version. It needs to be corrected.

Sorry to necro this thread, but the inconsistency in still present in the rules and came up in our session today while trying to get a group of players new to RQ familiar with the combat rules. There are two very different rules describing how much damage is done when a Critical Attack meets a regular Parry. Chart on Pg. 199 Pg. 200 Since a weapon normally takes 1 HP against an attack that overwhelms its HP, this would mean a Critical Hit just does 2 HP. That is clearly not the intent of the chart on pg. 199. The chart seems to be the intended rule, but the inconsistencies between the chart and the fuller rules descriptions is extremely frustrating. Our Humakti successfully parried against a critical attack from a battle axe doing 22 damage ((1d8+2)x2 + 1d6). His broadsword has 12 HP. One version has his broadsword being almost completely destroyed, dropping to -10 HP. The other version has it dropping by 2 HP down to 10 HP. Quite a discrepancy.

Thanks. I’ve been meaning to search for more info on this.

Once you sacrifice a point of POW to the second aspect of a cult, like Adventerous and Thunderous, you add a new special Rune spell from the previously restricted aspect, you increase your original Rune Pool by 1, and you now continue to use the Rune Pool of the default cult but you can now learn all the special magics of the subcult too. There’s no longer any meaningful difference between the two. You can freely learn whichever magics from both aspects.

The subcults are another aspect of RQG that I’m finding far less interesting than HeroQuest. As an example, the distinction between Adventerous and Thunderous is barely relevant. As has been pointed out, once initiated to either, a single additional point of POW opens both aspect fully. It doesn’t feel like a meaningful decision. Subcults for the Thunderous Brothers or herocults like Ulanin get even more disappointing. HeroQuest handles the many varied subcults in far more interesting ways.

I was recently wondering if there’s a condensed or less formal version of the Greeting. Is there?

I’m thinking of Command (Cult Spirit), which I imagine would work for specific spirits depending on your cult. But yes, Control (entity) would be another option and Sorcery has its spells as well.

I was recently trying to figure out how this works. I’m pretty sure that there’s a passage that says the spirit must be commanded with a Rune Spell to get repeated use. Otherwise you can use the spirit once and then it is released and you’d have an empty binding enchantment. RQG pg 249 (emphasis mine): Not sure which entities must be released to function.

Yep. Thanks! My guess was a crocodile, but I had missed the references in the Sartar Companion.

Yeah. I think I’ll use the stats for the giant croc in the RQG Beastiary.

Thanks! I don’t look in the Sartar Companion enough.

Hey folks, One of the episodes in The Eleven Lights involves the party encountering Orlanthi rebels battling against a 20 ft river dragon. What is a river dragon? Is this just an alligator or crocodile and being called a “dragon” in Glorantha? @Ian Cooper?

I’ve strongly suspected this example is just wrong. Harmast should have taken 9 damage and have 1 hit point remaining.

I like the cult secrets from Hero Wars as inspiration for HeroQuest abilities.

I’ve been going back to Thunder Rebels and Storm Tribe more and more lately. I’d forgotten how blown away I was by the release of these books. I consider them easily amongst the finest supplements ever released for a roleplaying game. Production values might be low, but the ideas contained within their pages are world shattering. They dive so deeply into a complex of cults for the Orlanthi people and how that all impacts the culture. Hero Wars was so refreshing in the ways it reimagined Glorantha free of the mechanical constraints of RuneQuest. I’m certainly interested in emphasizing the many subcults and variants of the various deities and embracing the confusion and contradictions. I think the HQ cult writeups a very good, but then I find little nuggets of gold in Thunder Rebels and Storm Tribe that were edited out and I mourn that they didn’t make it in the more recent cult writeups.

I think I love you. Was not expecting Derrida and Lacan.

I’m trying to decide how to represent Ulanin the Rider’s subcult within RQG for the Red Cow campaign.

I was introduced to RQ3 and never played RQ2, so I’m not nostalgic about it. I also find most of the reversions from RQ3 to be to the detriment of the game. Passions and Rune Magic changes are welcome, but almost everything that was changed back to RQ2 is for the worse imo.

I get that you’re changing the Elmal and Yelmalio stories for RQG, but it’s not like the current confusion is simply the result of some “overly broad description“ limited to S:KoH. There’s multiple sources that paint very different versions of Elmal and Yelmalio that are incompatible with your new take. For example, from the Far Place article in Wyrms Footnotes, vol 15, page 41: There’s no acceptance or acknowledgement that Elmal and Yelmalio are the same god. We’re told quite clearly that Yelmalio is “neither Yelm nor Elmal.” There’s also no love between the Orlanthi and Yelmalio. Yelmalio is named an “enemy of Orlanth.” The Elmali adopt Yelmalio for magical power, but also, and perhaps primarily, because they are disgruntled. They’re rejecting their Orlanthi leaders and rejecting their role as loyal thanes. I get confused with the new version of events because almost every detailed account of Elmal and Yelmalio written in the past couple decades is wholly incompatible with the version of the story being developed for RQG. I loved your development blogs for RQG. It would be fascinating to see a detailed blog about why you’ve chosen to so dramatically change the story of Elmal and Yelmalio after so much effort was spent since King of Sartar was published in 1992 to create a fully formed place and mythology for Elmal within Glorantha.

Folks love to bring up Orlanth and his subcults. So let’s talk about them for a minute. Orlanth Adventerous and Orlanth Thunderous are both Orlanth and both accepted and foundational elements of Orlanthi society. But even though both subcults are the same god, they are treated differently. They have different religious hierarchies, emphasize different cult skills, have different magics available to them, especially different Rune magics, lead different rituals, and play different roles in Orlanthi culture. Because they have different myths and different roles, they grant different magics, and they’re worshipped in different ways. Even though pretty much everyone acknowledges they’re both Orlanth. What about Elmal and Yelmalio? Let’s not try to address the question of whether or not Elmal and Yelmalio are the same. Actually, let’s just put the debate aside and assume for the sake of the argument that in the great mystery they are actually the same entity (again, let’s ignore all the previous evidence against them being the same god). Even though we’ve accepted this, the two subcults aren’t worshipped the same. Their followers don’t emulate the same myths. They don’t have the same religious structures. They don’t have the same religious associations. Each is associated with different magics. They don’t represent the same celestial entity. They don’t even share the same Runes in that Elmal is depicted as having access to the Fire Rune. Their followers don’t play the same roles in their respective societies. And at least the Elmali don’t believe that they are a subcult of Yelmalio. So why should they have the same cult format? Orlanth Adventerous and Thunderous have very different aspects to their cults, especially the Rune Magic, and everyone believes they’re the different ways of worshipping the same entity. Elmal and Yelmalio are not believed to the be same by everyone and they have very different cults and have been depicted with different magics, but the new RQG materials keeps proposing that they can basically be treated as the same. The document in progress has a adopted a couple minor differences, but still proposes they’re basically the same and can be treated as such. Why? Historically the two cults have felt very different even if they have overlapping realms of influence. Treating Elmal as a lesser carbon copy of Yelmalio completely erases the rich differences between the two cults. Would you propose Orlanth Adventerous and Thunderous could be treated as carbon copies of one another with a point or two of different magics? I hope not. What do the Orlanthi think about Shargash and Antirius? How do they figure in Elmal’s myths? I’m pretty sure the answer to those questions is that they don’t. So while a God Learner or worshipper of Yelmalio might try to make those associations, they have no impact on how the Orlanthi experience Elmal in their lives from day to day. Again, the question isn’t can the readers of the game setting, or God Learners find connections and similarities between these beings. The question is, when the Orlanthi look at the Sun in the sky and worship Elmal in thanks, do they do so in the same way that Yelmalions worship? The answer, from previous depictions of the cults, is no. The vast majority of Orlanthi around the time of Monrogh’s revelation don’t know anything about Antirius. The source material is certainly not clear on this. The idea of independent clans following Yelmalio seems to be a relic of the time before the initial revelation of Elmal. After his revelation, Elmal seemed to replace Yelmalio in that role. There are several references to Elmal’s cult begin present in Tarsh without the influence of the Heortlings. We’re told the Dolutha for example worship Elmal and that they came to Dragon Pass from the north, not as part of the Heortling migration. We’re told Elmal was worshipped in Tarsh too and that those clans and tribes converted to the new Yelmalio cult. The Elmali of the Iron Spike were from Tarsh and not Heortlings and maintained the worship of Elmal rather than converting to Yelmalio. This is basically what I presented as the real cause of the #3 response the Orlanthi followers of Elmal might have to The Yelmalions when they come seeking converts. It’s a polictical frustration about feeling abused and overlooked. But it requires a severing of the ties the Elmal has to Orlanth which are central to the way in which Elmal’s cult is worshiped, which is to say it doesn’t present a smooth transition, but rather a total rejection of the society in which they were raised and lived. Hence, the need to move to a new homeland in Vaantar.

But how does someone that believes the Heortling Orlanthi myths reconcile the depiction of Elmal’s path away from the Fire Tribe with the Yelmalio myths? Elmal rejects the Fire Tribe. After he is healed he sees the failures of stagnation of the Fire Tribe and Yelm’s court. He seeks out a better way and his brothers jealousy try to steal his light. Elmal learns humility and learns to serve others. While you can say that Yelmalio endured and fought against many enemies in the darkness while Orlanth undertook the Lightbringers’ Quest, that version of the story is missing all the specific details of Elmal’s story. It’s missing Elmal’s growth from arrogant and prideful son of the Emperor into the loyal thane of the Orlanthi. Yelmalio stopped being a complete enemy to Orlanth and fought against common foes is not nearly the same thing as Elmal’s journey and growth in the Heortling myths. What convinces the Orlanthi to reevaluate their myths and replace them with versions where Yelmalio isn’t a loyal thane? What convinces them to leave Orlanthi society and customs behind?

These are good questions. I’ve never been very convinced that many people were would choose #3, but we’re told in the various sources that most (or all in the earliest versions) followers of Elmal joined Monrogh (sometime around 1550) and that the Elmal cult is in decline. I think we’re missing a compelling mythic story that explains how folks were convinced that Elmal and Yelmalio could possibly the same god. The myths and attitudes are very divergent. The most compelling versions of the story are already contained in the Orlanthi’s Elmal myths, where Elmal was lesser when he served the Fire Tribe and became greater when he changed his ways and joined the Storm Tribe. The Orlanthi myths could easily lead to the belief that the two are different gods (brothers) or that Elmal is the evolution of Yelmalio. Elmal is Yelmalio after he became a much better person (from an Orlanthi perspective). I don’t know what the compelling myth is that convinces the Elmali that Yelmalio was the better version. We are told that many Elmali were being influenced by the lowland solar cults and were basically in rebellion against their Orlanthi leaders. They sought out more power from foreign solar gods so that they could use the magical power against their foes. Really, this is Elmal’s temptation in the myth Elmal Guards the Stead. The Teller of Lies tries to convince Elmal that he is the rightful ruler of the people and that he, not Orlanth, should rule the Storm Tribe. Elmal resists the temptation and rejects Teller of Lies. So really, the whole Monrogh-Yelmalio cult looks very much like the temptation from Teller of Lies. Orlanth is unworthy of your loyalty and you should rule yourselves. It looks very much like Monrogh and most of the Elmali failed this test and succumbed to the Teller of Lies. This is pretty much what we’re told the Elmal cult believes about Yelmalio’s cult. Those that stayed faithful to Elmal and rejected the Yelmalio cult are staying true to the Orlanthi myths and the story of Elmal Guards the Stead.

So it occurs to me that that Orlanthi have several ways in which they might respond to Monrogh and his followers when the Yelmalio missionaries show up and start trying to persuade followers of Elmal to join the cult of New Elmal, AKA Yelmalio. When challenged with the revelation that Elmal is just a mask of Yelmalio the Orlanthi have a couple answers already built into their myths about Elmal. What will the Sun Priests tell the rest of the Storm Tribe when Yelmalio claims to be the true face of Elmal? Is Elmal Yelmalio? 1) No. Elmal is not Yelmalio. Elmal left the Fire Tribe after he was healed by Chalana Arroy and he realized he wasn’t a very nice person and his tribe weren’t very nice people. Elmal’s brothers were angry that Elmal left the Fire Tribe and were jealous that Elmal possessed the most brilliant light of all of them. Yelmalio was the greatest of those little jealous brothers. That Yelmalio’s followers claim that Elmal is just a mask of Yelmalio is a manifestation of that anger and jealously and fueled by the Teller of Lies (see: Chaos, see: Nysalor-Gbaji). 2) Yes. Elmal is Yelmalio. Elmal left the Fire Tribe after he was healed by Chalana Arroy. He wasn’t a very nice person and used to be called Yelmalio. His tribe weren’t very nice people. Chalana Arroy healed Yelmalio’s broken body and broken spirit and restored his lost power after his defeat(s) at the hands of his enemies. Yelmalio was no longer Yelmalio and now became Elmal. A wiser, nicer, and all around more chill fellow. This brought Elmal to Orlanth who proved worthy of Elmal’s service. Now Elmal uses his strength and brilliance to serve and protect others. In the process, he proved himself worthy to carry the burden of the Sun Disk across the sky. That now Yelmalio’s followers claim that Elmal is just a mask of Yelmalio is a manifestation of that anger and jealously and fueled by the Teller of Lies (see: Chaos, see: Nysalor-Gbaji). They worship the broken and unworthy Yelmalio before he was healed by Chalana Arroy. Our Elmal is the true version of what became of Elmal and a much nicer person. 3) Yes. Elmal is Yelmalio. Elmal is Yelmalio. Enemy of Orlanth and Son of Yelm. We have been lied to and Orlanth has abused our loyalty and service. Orlanth is unworthy of our loyalty. Yelmalio, the Cold Sun, survived without the aid of Chalana Arroy. Yelmalio is greater than the Storm Tribe and does not need them. We should make our own rules and follow our own ways. No follower of Orlanth is fit to rule us.

The full text of his comments seemed fairly clear that he was making a recommendation as to how you could fix the passage you shared to make it feel more compatible with previous material published about Elmal. The final second paragraph is not intended to be an authoritative declaration of what the RQG materials say, but advocating for what they might say to create less disruption with the version of Elmal most recently presented in HeroQuest.

I’ve been trying to get someone to pin down official dates for Tarkalor’s vision and then the battle finally driving the Kitori out of Vaantar, but no one seems willing or able to provide dates from existing texts. I haven’t seen more definitive dates than it started sometime around 1550 and Vaantar was granted to Monrogh’s Yelmalions in 1579.