Dogboy

It should be pointed out that the published map in the adventure doesn't match the description or the original map, drawn by Steve Perrin, I think. I'm not sure what happened but the map can be found in one of the stretch-goal books that came with the Guide:

a good review. I agree that we could have done with a clearer version of Treyas' story. My only other criticism is the player map of the Ruins: i can't make head nor tail of them. It reminded me of the Tower from Pegasus Plateau, which had no relation to what was described. My players are about to enter, and I fear that their map will derail the game as it doesn't match up with the bigger map in anyway (to me).

8 hours ago, Jeff said:

Yeah, and with perfect 20/20 hindsight, it was completely over the top. Shargash in Peloria - especially by the Third Age - is a second tier cult. 75k cultists tops. Now that's a lot - but comparable to the Antirius, Lowfires or Polaris, rather than much smaller than cults like Yelm or Lodril, let alone the Seven Mothers (which has more than ten ties the cult of Shargash). He's a war god and a city god, and by the current Wane his cult has been forced to accept not only the supremacy of Yelm, but of the Red Goddess. Alkoth is definitely comparatively diminished in 1625 compared to 225.

This of course was part of the problem posed by GRoY - it was filled with cool information, but was sent some 14 centuries ago. 

Yup, that makes a lot of sense. Thanks for clarifying.

On 9/24/2021 at 8:11 AM, Darius West said:

Yes there will be similarities, but they are in essence quite different cults, in the same way Japanese Hidden Christianity was massively different to the Roman Catholicism that began it. 

For this reason I really enjoyed the Enclosure version of Shargash, and was a bit underwhelmed by the RQ:GoG version by comparison. 

I agree, I can see them as two quite different cults. The reasoning for no RuneLords(ladies) makes sense for the Alkothi Shargashi, as the Lunar authorities have muzzled the cult, so it acts as purely foot-soldiers or funerary priests, but surely the Tolatings wouldn't have that prohibition.

2 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Having been involved in the discussions that led to the Shargash cult writeup, I can say that it was developed from our interpretations of GRoY, FS, the Alkoth book, and other material.   I don't recall if Pam or Martin L. ever used explicitly in a campaign - we were largely trying to flesh out what a cult and culture of Alkoth might be.  It definitely included our ideas of Red, Green, and Black Kings.

 

I stand corrected.

On 9/23/2021 at 11:11 AM, David Scott said:

As it was a fan version, it was unlikely to have formed the basis for the Cults of Glorantha version. 

As it was Jeff & Neils fanzine, which likely used stuff from their house campaign, I can't but giggle at this. It wouldn't be the first time their fan-works became canon.
 

On 9/24/2021 at 8:11 AM, Darius West said:

Yeah, the Enclosure version of Shargash didn't include the whole Shargash/Tolat/Red Planet issue, but it was a more entertaining read, and in many ways grounded Alkoth and its role in Dara Happa more clearly within the literature. 

I personally like and enjoy regional granularity in cults.  I am not interested in the fact that Shargash and Tolat are the same god, I am interested in how the cult of Alkoth differs from the cult of the Amazons. Clearly they should have different associated cults, variance in the mythology, and differing forms of worship and standards of admission.  Yes there will be similarities, but they are in essence quite different cults, in the same way Japanese Hidden Christianity was massively different to the Roman Catholicism that began it. 

For this reason I really enjoyed the Enclosure version of Shargash, and was a bit underwhelmed by the RQ:GoG version by comparison. 

Yeah, I quite liked their version, and and agree regional granularity is important, Tolat and Shargash are 2 completely different cults. Sure they worship aspects of the same god, but without someone actually binding them together they will be very different cults in my Glorantha.

On 18/08/2017 at 8:56 PM, davecake said:

Their favourite theist cult was Lhankor Mhy, which integrates sorcery anyway.

Or has only been since they dabbled with it?

10 hours ago, Brian McReynolds said:

One way round this might require 'The Hill of Gold' Heroquest to be (re)enacted with success against Zorak Zoran, (I think), in which case the Heroquest 'Challenger' would/could regain access to Yelmalio's lost Fire magics. Invictus of the Praxian Sun Dome Temple, has a Fire Rune in Pavis:GTA, as a consequence of this Heroquest, if I remember correctly.

I think Yelmalion communities have a different idea about the Hill of Gold Heroquest. We always think of it as "ooh, wouldn't it be good to regain our lost powers" but I suspect for them it is a necessary sacrifice, and I suspect it forms the center of their Sacred Time rituals: you endure the hardships of the quest to renew the world. It kind of chimes with their Spartan outlook.

10 hours ago, Brian McReynolds said:

Even for the 'transitional generation', the God-time may have become as poorly remembered as our own childhood memories.

What were the skies like when you were young, Grandma?
They went on forever and they, when I, we lived in Esrolia
And the skies always had little fluffy clouds
And they moved down, they were long and clear
And there were lots of stars at night

And when it would rain it would all turn, it, they were beautiful
The most beautiful skies as a matter of fact
The sunsets were purple and red and yellow and on fire
And the clouds would catch the colors everywhere
That's neat, 'cause I used to look at them all the time when I was little
You don't see that anymore
 

15 minutes ago, davecake said:

I think the no hero questing in the godtime means it wasn't a distinct thing, activity, not that most of the things that we think of as HeroQuest activities weren't possible. Basically, heroquesting is contacting the other world from the mundane world, so it doesn't even make sense when both worlds were united. In the God Time, a HeroQuest was 'just' a quest, because every thing was magical and portentous. 

Thank you for saying what I obvious couldn't convey clearly. very nicely put.

32 minutes ago, Septimus Kendaro said:

Thinking about logos on games I realized I just don't care that much.  The cover image if far more important to me and what's inside even more so.  If this logo helps attract a new generation of players by being somewhat familiar then I'm all for it.

Though I agree with you, I worry that it won't integrate well with art. Honestly, I'm likely not the target audience, and my artistic sensibilities may be outdated.

Yeah, that new logo is far too busy; embossed bronze on embossed stone, with a very modern looking underline straight out of OSX. The sizing on the letters is all over the place, the N particularly is far too wide compared to the other letters, and the E & S too small. It feels very cramped.

Mostly, as others have said, it's just very generic. I liked the simplicity of the QS logo, especially coming as it did after the very busy logos of the Post-RQ3 era (though the DM version is rather elegant, and I love how it harks back to the RQ1 logo). I'm not sure why Chaosium decided to redo the logo between the QS and RQG: they are the same rules iteration, but they don't look like they are, due to such a drastic logo change.

the AH RQIII logo resonates most with me, as it was when I first got into Glorantha. Yes, it's also quite cramped, but the lightness of the line weight leavens it (something which GW happily screwed on their version. What were they thinking?).

I really love the "Book of Kels"-ness of the original logos, it gives a sense of archaism which set it apart from other games of the period. Of the 2 I prefer the BW version, as it has some touches lost when they redid it in colour. Kudos to DM for the call back to it on RQ6.

1 hour ago, Charles said:

Totally agree!

Furthermore, it is likely that the troll hell is somewhere in the sky.

Or, as Joerg points out, it's Wonderhome itself

7 hours ago, Charles said:

I still think that the Underworld is a different place to the the God place. And the cultures that we are most familiar with do tend to think of it as dark, dangerous and unfriendly, even hostile. But some parts of the Underworld are not dark (but always dangerous).

I think there is a tendency to mix up the Underworld with Hell. Though the Underworld contains many Hells, it isn't of itself Hell.

5 hours ago, lokamayadon said:

P136 : The god learnerS secret is not clearly for me even if it said it is explained in thé guide. I still Doesn't t know How they were abble to modif the otherworld or manipulate the runes so freely 

LOL! Even if it is contained it will not be signposted. It is just a secret in plain sight now

Though it might also have been mentioned in another thread. Possibly. Who knows?

8 hours ago, David Scott said:

Mike Perry did the The Four Otherworlds piece based on Jeff's initial sketch:

@Charles I have a feeling that were you involved in this?

So was I, but let's not go there

3 hours ago, soltakss said:

So, I am suspicious of the claim that heroQuesting did not exist in GodTime.

*SNIP*

When Time began, mortals just got old and died.

I think the standard "People lived longer way back when" still applied, as these were considered to be more powerful than people in "modern" Glorantha, but they still died.

OK, I think you can only Heroquest since Time. Gods don't/didn't heroquest, and neither do/did the demigods and other denizens of Godtime. They had no reason to, as they are stuff of the Heroplane and its' raw potential. They are the fabric from which we weave our tales, our Myths.

After Time, those tales are fixed, and can only be experienced by ritual or heroquesting. You only heroquest for 2 reasons: to reforge your bond with Gods and to use myth to find a solution for an exotic problem.

Orlanth doesn't "heroquest" to liberate Heler from Aroka, but you do by following in his footsteps to break a drought. Saying he heroquested is like saying he followed in Harmasts footsteps to fulfill the Lightbringers quest*. Just because two myths are similar doesn't mean that one god was replicating the others heroquest.

2 hours ago, Steve said:

p.191 - Religion, "Balazarings religion" should either be "Balazarings' religion" or "Balazaring religion".

or Votanki, as not all "Balazarings" worship him as an ancestor, but they all worship Votank.

56 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

“Most witches don’t believe in gods. They know that the gods exist, of course. They even deal with them occasionally. But they don’t believe in them. They know them too well. It would be like believing in the postman.”
—Terry Pratchett

I remember Simon Bray telling Greg that Small Gods was a good example of how Gloranthan worship worked. He got a little flustered.

OK, I think my point wasn't clear (I'm really not good at putting my thoughts to words). I'm not saying they have technology, I'm saying they have whatever mechani-magical crazy shit we think is cool. As Joerg said, they are the people who make cool prostheses in myths; how it works doesn't matter a jot. It is Clarkian tech/magic, with the twist that technology in Glorantha is magic.

So, I take references to Black Powder with a pinch of salt; their weapons use thunderstones in opposition to an alchemical mix that represents sky and earth, which when animated creates great amounts of wind and clouds, which can propel a projectile. Is it gun-powder? no, but it can act similarly. Do they have clockwork? Not really, but they have things with gears that describe circular paths, because they attempt to simulate things that are cyclical; the movement of the Skydome, or the changing of workshifts.

My point is, what might appears to be technology isn't. It is a technology analogue.

6 minutes ago, jrutila said:

We also noted that none of the Lesser Elder Races (from Elder Races also only Mostali) are atheist.

I'd question if anyone is atheist in Glorantha. Everyone knows there are spirits, great and small, even if they think worship of them is misguided.

I'd probably use the term rationalist over atheist.

Just now, Joerg said:

Apparently, a convention scenario written in 1993 saw a limited distribution at auctions:

http://glorantha.temppeli.org/digest/gd7/2000.02/3127.html

While this is an opportunity for MGF and silliness, it doesn't quite do justice to the Mostali in Gloranthan myth.

I have a copy if anyone wants to make me an offer

27 minutes ago, soltakss said:

We had an Iron Mostali NPC who was clockwork but covered in an outer skin, he had red glowing eyes and spoke with an Austrian accent ...

Ah'll be behk!!!

I did start working on a Mostali freeform based on Star Trek, but got bogged down with infection mechanics.

4 minutes ago, davecake said:

Joerg, you've hit on my worries precisely. The Antikthyra mechanism seems appropriate, but clockwork creatures seems more 19th century fiction, getting into exactly the kind of thing many of us thought was inappropriate in Mongooses version of Zistorites. And it seems inconsistent with previous descriptions of Mostali creatures in Anaxials Roster. 

I do see what you mean, but I'm not sure I agree. You are seeing technology that you feel is anachronistic, but ignoring the fact that they also have technology that makes golems. You are looking at it wrong, in my opinion.

Much as I feel we can never, really, understand Aldrymai (they are wood, we are meat), we can't really understand Mostali. Everything written about them is from the outside looking in. It is an interpretation. When we say they have clockwork, we think "oh, how did they develop that?". They didn't. It was always there. Mostali don't "invent" like we do, generally because there is no reason to. Either there is a mechanism, or there isn't. They make Nuadas arm in silver, because it is longer lasting than flesh.

Could Mostali make a Difference Engine? Of course they could, but they don't because there are Gold Mostali to do any calculation. Mostali have no imagination.

Mostali "believe" in the Artificer, and that is the lens through which they see the world. The world is mechanistic, and everything within it is a mechanism, part of the larger engine. They see very little difference between the Antikythera mechanism and a man, because there is none. Both should work perfectly, but one is the construction of a derailed system, and follows broken programming. Likewise they see no difference between a Mostali and a clock; both are mere constructs. Both are tools.

But even that isn't correct. Most Mostali don't "believe" anything, they just operate. The issue is that things are broken, so Mostali have created a system of quarantines, to distance themselves from infection. What we see as "heresy" is actually just divergence from norm. Any "heretic" knows they are divergent, and that they can't interact with "normal" Mostali, for fear of infecting them. "Heretics" know they are part of the Machine, and that they have a role, but that role is to deal with things that "orthodox" Mostali can't risk. Mostali know they have to deal with the world, they just can't risk the infection. So they send out "Openhandists" to deal with the outside, and "Octamonists" to disinfect and shore up and breaches.

NB: It has to be pointed out that all of the Mostali depicted in this chapter are "heretics". Every. Single. One.