Grievous

p. 34: "They hate owls and kill them on site."

I've posted this before on this topic, but I always thought this was a great comic on this issue.

This is interesting when considering two clans/tribes at war over territory, as really they're fighting over a lease on Ernalda's land. Sure, it seems this can be resolved by just the clan/tribal rings coming to a conclusion on who gets to administer it, but it also seems likely that the Ernalda temples would get involved, especially if the fighting effects the administering and bounty of the land (however it's not like they're wholly removed from the politics). Kinda puts an interesting spin on the idea of women's peace weaving between clans/tribes.

First edition HQ brought me in too, so there's some nostalgia. That said, it is pretty easy to convert things for Heroquest (and much more laborous other way around), so in a way Runequest supplements do more bang for the buck. But yeah, there are issues to being split between systems (three, in fact!).

Whoooh, and yeah, that family tree in the GM Screen Pack is also out of funk with Sartar:Kingdom of Heroes. I'm not sure which way the wind blows, but I'd appreciate if this bloodline could be nailed down somewhat definitely. I know I perhaps put a lot more emphasis on family trees than most folks running games in the setting, but for me families are the root of many, many plots, and since I also focus on politics a lot, the families of those in powerful cliques are especially relevant.

As always, great review, if one can call it that, as Andrew's reviews tend to veer more into the realm of proper art critique (and I use that term in the best sense here). They do justice to the product and they tell you something much more, too.

I actually think that's very much part of the thing. People don't know what sorcery looks like and are going to be suspicious whenever something that could be sorcery pops up. "Is this some of that God Learner business? We don't want none of that on our lands."

Yeah, I feel as the other guys have said. Most times sorcery has been involved (outside of LM), things have gone mostly horribly wrong: Arkat and the God Learners to name the usual culprits. Not that the normal Orlanthi will know much about them, but they'll know enough to think they're bad.

You know, I'm thinking of just tossing the combat system entirely and bolting on Pendragon's combat. Not a fan really and I'm not sure I want to go the extensive tweaking route. Utilizing parts of Mythras might work, but but. Pendragon is fine, though. There's a few issues to resolve because Pendragon uses d20s. That said, I might toss the d100 and go even more Pendragony... but that's beyond the scope of just combat.

With Gold-Gotti now having a revised role, I wonder what (if anything) will take his place as a business magnate in Wilmskirk and what happens to the Two-Penny network? It seems unlikely they would survive the transition, but there's certainly room for a merchant prince type in Sartar/Wilmskirk.

Argrath is descended from Sartar (or at least has the done the appropriate steps to effectively prove he is) - Leika isn't. That's one thing.

I was gonna say that the clan ring looked like a group of right bastards, but now that I know they're friends of your's maybe I shouldn't go so far! 🤣

"I am so excited" is both a great song and an adequate description of my current emotional state.

I'd think there's loads of Illuminates in the Lunar Empire for example and I doubt a significant percentage of them are Heroes.

Well we can argue about the rules on the forums until we're blue in the face (and people probably will), but ultimately it's gonna be done by Chaosium, the way they want to do it. We can then vote with our wallets. And since you seem to just want things to stay the same (pardon me if I'm wrong about that), it's not like you're losing out on anything since all the old stuff will still continue to exist. But you're not (easily, absent some weird new evidence) going to say Chaosium is somehow ruining Greg's legacy here. That is stretching it, and indeed seems contrary to the truth.

Things getting clarified and made uniform across the main rules and the many, many supplements with optional/contradictory rules would be very helpful.

Well, it can, but it doesn't have to. The Lunars would term that Occlusion. And because Illuminated beings will quite easily display behaviour patterns that are very different from cultural norms, they will often be called crazy and evil even when they are not. They will not obey the limits of accepted society, but that can go in many different directions. Thus the term Occlusion also could become a weapon to wielded against any Illuminate that you don't agree with. I also think the topic discussed in the book Zen at War is quite relevant here.

For Pelorians, it may be enough that some headman on the farm is Initiated and can do the Bless Crops bit, ie. I think the specialization bit mentioned earlier in this thread is probably relevant (and also fels pretty appropriate for say Lodril - though not sure if he gets Bless Crops). Basically, a farm doesn't need unlimited Bless Crops, but just enough to cover their allotment. Yeah, but pretty soon (a year, definitely a generation) the tribe that is stronger in magic will be richer... there's really no avoiding it. A system like that would be great, at least for most the types of games I intend to run in Glorantha. I've been planning on using the HQ system and just slotting it in somehow and developing it from there (but since I'm not close to running those campaigns, I haven't really done much work on this). Now thinking about that, a KoDP type allotment of Magic to specific slots might tell you which spells clan NPCs have available when you meet them. Oddly, I haven't really heard anything heading this way in Runequest. Maybe that's an area that could use a sourcebook of its own..

Didn't we just learn in another thread that Orlanth gets a holyday every week? Feels somewhat significant, considering the typical play area. Can't remember where, but it was somewhere over here.

Ahh right, that's indeed a/the hurdle. However, and revising my point from above a little, we're still looking at a two-tiered system: for the major cults that have weekly holy days and which are well represented by priests in the clan, there's gonna be quite plentiful replenishing (as long as you're not too far from the temple *1); for the lesser cults, you're still relegated to the "useful mostly once per season" caste (in a magical sense, obviously you're not suddenly entirely useless to the clan). Another thing for adventuring types to keep in mind is that the community might be relying on your magic to function and if you spend it chasing treasure in far-off parts of the land, your loose spending of the magics is going to be looked at askance. *1 This would also greatly influence settlement and temple placement patterns. Also, the settlements and folks farther away are just going be less well off purely based on this. One more thing that this causes (and I'm writing this down for my plot notes) is that lobbying for temples/shrines and the priests to staff them is going to be a factor in clan and tribal politics for those who do mostly without them.

Access to temples/shrines shouldn't really be a problem. I think people are blowing that a little out of proportion. It makes sense for these to be within reach, at least when on your own clan's tula. Sure, when travelling or in a specific tight spot this is an issue that should come up, but outside of that, probably not so much. Clan tulas are not that huge for relatively quick travel in a situation where you've run out of points so you make it a point to go replenish at the first opportunity, either. So anyone with a weekly holy day is going to be readily topped off. That's a huge gulf in effectiveness between the cults that have them and the cults that don't which is definitely felt in the game world. That really creates a class of two kinds of magical experts: those who can be relied on once a season to provide magical support and those who can be relied all the time (which is admittedly a little bit of head scratcher). I think there's a bit of a gulf in the discussion here between those who see a magical economy inevitably developing because of the Rune Point mechanics and those who override those with fiat (and handwave the fact that the rules become inconsistent with the fictional setting). I am firmly in the first camp as I do think that rules (should and do) matter, so this is an interesting topic.

Orlaront: "OOPS" THAT WENT BETTER THAN EXPECTED Kallyr: 🤬

Actually, in regards to this, as I'm woefully clueless re: the Gold Wheel Dancers... were they all turned into Wheels, or rather are all Wheels Gold Wheel Dancers or just some of them? And, I'm almost afraid to ask, but why? 🧐

You recognize it when the Storm Bull sees it. 😀

Murder-hobos taken to another level: murder-engineers.