Grievous

1 hour ago, JonL said:

You could also conceivably find future (from your perspective) Compromise crises in God Time. If in some crisis yet to come, a god or gods intervene directly within Time, that moment is also within the God Time. 

I believe all known possibilities are very likely already found somewhere in the God Time... sometimes the Many possibilities are just found in the One myth that we already know... the meaning is created by the witness. Find that a troublesome concept to swallow? Roll for Illumination and wave the Spirits of Reprisal away. Then bring that truth to the people.

On 8/29/2019 at 9:17 PM, lordabdul said:

That aligns pretty well with how I view sorcery, yeah. As mentioned before, it's basically the Ars Magica fantasy of "wizards as alchemists", who spend most of their time indoors, in their mysterious tower at the edge of the village, only occasionally coming out to provide a few services to the farmers and merchants in exchange for some mana or other resource.

To that degree, I think the critically important innovation that Ars Magica brought to the table is popularizing the "troupe play" as a way around the fact that, indeed, such wizards don't make great adventurers -- they don't do much "in the heat of the moment" because it's all about preparation, work, research, etc. When they do cast something on the spot, the only reason they have such amazing spells is because they spent the past entire year pre-casting those spells with the right rituals, on the right days, using the right ingredients, etc. And that's why you only play your wizard once every 4 adventures or so in Ars Magica (the rest of the time you play their servants/bodyguards/messengers going out on missions for them).

I'm really hoping for a future RQG sourcebook on sorcerers, and I'm really hoping it takes Ars Magica's angle and carries it forward some more. But as they stand, in my opinion, the RQG RAW on sorcery only need a few tweaks, some extra elements/bonuses/MP rules/etc., and a whole bunch of cultural/RP flavour to achieve that fantasy (but that's a whole different game than RQG is right now, so that's probably why Jeff is hand-waving it a bit from the current Dragon Pass-centered editorial line)

I was haunted by this idea of sorcery in Runequest/Glorantha and just wanted to give it another moment in the sunlight. I think there's some real juice in that and i would be an interesting expansion of the game/theme whenever we do move to look at more Western focused supplements.

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

So, you could have a campaign where you are looking for a certain Duck, for something, so look at all the usual Duck haunts. Duck Point, the Upland Marsh, perhaps Duck Pond and Duck Tower, if you can get hold of the Judges Guild scenarios, along the Creek-Stream-River, along the Zola Fel River in Prax, in Pavis, in the Big Rubble, perhaps in some of the Oases in Prax and the Wastes. Each could have small Duck communities, perhaps proper hamlets, perhaps just bands of Duck bandits or outlaws

 

And let's not forget going to see Gonn Orta, who's also looking for the very same duck! And, as we know, when he finds that duck, the Hero Wars will begin...

The WBRM/Dragon Pass board game features several scenarios, but it isn't totally clear from the descriptions which battles from our imagined history they actually represent or when they are supposed to happen. Can anyone let us know which battles and/or dates the following scenarios depict:

Stemming the Tide
High Tide
Argrath's Return
Counterstroke
Hearts and Minds
Dousing the Flames
Rising of Tarsh

Thanks for any input!

41 minutes ago, Brootse said:

Interesting, seems like -ling works like the Finnish -lainen. Probably a loan word.

Yes, but also and perhaps more to the point, -nen (thus also preserving the occasional overlap with the diminutive). -nen also maps to the Finnish tribes: Karjalainen, Pohjalainen, etc. 

3 hours ago, Jeff said:

Between them the Lightbringers have Movement, Stasis, Harmony, Disorder, Truth, Illusion - just missing Life and Death to complete the polarities, but one could say that is the LBQ itself!

That's actually pretty interesting (and fitting)! That life can be restored when the ebb and flow of creation calms and comes together... so I wonder about the 7M. Seems they reach that powerful point of balance via the cycles of the Moon, and that point of balance is the Red Goddess herself. She (or her Empire) weaves the Moon rune into the fabric of all existence (or rather reveals how it's already there, in one phase or another), intent on healing it with that same trick. That's how I'm seeing it, anyway.

As an aside, if her effort to supplant Orlanth from the Middle Air would have been successful, would she have supplanted Orlanth as the resurrector of Yelm too? And why does that asking that question bring to my mind the name Nysalor. Hmm.

56 minutes ago, Jeff said:

King: this is the Rex of a tribe. This is the main title of a tribal king in Dragon Pass, Peloria, Ralios, and Fronela. 

King: this is the paramount chief of a tribe. This is used mainly in Heortland, Maniria, and Umathela.

Can I get a little more idea / context on what is the difference here?

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

But I totally dig the idea of Gross National Ransom!

Yes, an absolutely fantastic statistic! 🤣

Of course, this will inevitably lead to this situation:

Basic Murder Hobo PC: So, how much if we just kill all of them?

6 hours ago, MOB said:

My companion story to Nick's, The Son of Light Awakens, discusses that further (it is all about the reason why the envoy in Nick's story is sent with the message from Glamor he gives).

The link to Son of Light Awakens is broken, btw. 😕

And ah, that's exactly what you said in your post - sorry for this superfluous note!

I don't mean to be too obvious, but I think we need a comic.

57 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Oh no, that's a statement refuting the opposite of what I said. Valare's heresy was that Entekos encompassed the Red Goddess, for which she got a sharp rap on the nose by Teelo. I'm saying the opposite: that she's a form of the Red Goddess, which is after all the basic theology of the Lunar Way. There are seven goddesses who preceded the Red Goddess and are her alternate... masks? Gerra, Lesilla, Natha, Rashorana, Ulurda, Verithurusa, and Zaytenera. As the Entokosiad comments at the end in What Valare Learned, "The Dendara Part of Rufelza, the Red Goddess, is Gerra, the Goddess of Suffering."

That was a thought that I had too after reading the Entekosiad. Admittedly, I've read it only once thoroughly and not really studied it more, but I also read something like that into it...

4 hours ago, Jeff said:

There are about 60 captains, which means that is the approximate number of important people. Harrek is a captain as well as Sea-King, as is Gold Gotti. 

Errr, Gold Gotti among the pirates? Well that's a surprise! 😲

Looking at the myths of Six Ages, we see that there Elmal is married to Nyalda, who to me looks more like their version of Esrola than Ernalda. We have the story of "Nyalda's Bride Price" there which details how Elmal won over Nyalda over her other suitors. It would make sense that there'd be some overlap between this story and how the Orlanthi see the two getting married (referring to the versions of the myths Bohemund presented earlier). 

On 6/29/2019 at 1:41 AM, Leingod said:

But yeah, it really is unfortunate that a lot of the material in Ride Like the Wind isn't really very usable in campaigns set in Time unless you're willing to really overhaul your personal take on Glorantha for it and throw out a lot of the written material, likely up to and including the prevalence of Elmal worship in the first place in the Third Age, since as written the cult is basically on the outs in favor of Yelmalio anyway and you pretty much only have Runegate and a few scattered clans to play with if you want to have a place where these gods can have a place, since I can tell you right now that the Sun Domers have no place in their society for any red-haired warrior daughters and bright-tailed wandering sons. Any real Hyaloring revival is pretty much going to need to be entirely home-brewed, though it could certainly be a pretty epic series of experimental heroquests and adventures undertaken by, say, members of the Runegate Triaty looking for something to empower Elmal's flagging worship by diving deep into his past or something.

One would think that the Pure Horse People - who have an origin among the Hyalorings - would preserve a lot of these old customs (even though it also seems that they are their own special thing even among the Riders). Of course, there's the general disappearance of Elmal to account for, and the resurgence of the Yu-Kargzant/Yelm worship (and whether that just popped up with the Dawn, or required some re-jiggering as by the Bright Empire), but we may get some insights into this as Six Ages rolls along (though it's as likely that the story will become more centered on the Berenethelli). And well, sure a lot what we know of the Grazers for example looks quite different, but the line of descent is there.

Also, who knows the Pentans could be pretty close to what we see of the Hyalorings.

So, yeah, I mean a lot of it isn't directly applicable, but I think it is a useful look at the past.

One wonders about the existence of Elmal among the southern Heortlings, but not among the northern Orlanthi, where he entered the pantheon, though. Of course it is likely Yelmalio has just overridden him there and it is the south which is farthest from the Yelmalian heartland, so.. 

So, it might make sense that a Summer Queen is chosen when there is an eligible Esrola Priestess (probably junior) up for marriage and males from different clans will vie for her in some form of contest. This would not really be a yearly event, but more like once a generation or so. Of course, Twisted Morganeth doesn't seem to be an Esrola Priestess, so there is that. I also wonder should the male candidates be restricted to initiates of Heler or Elmal, or would any Orlanthi apply (and if so, should they still choose to champion either of the aforementioned gods or could they stand in for their own).

I hope you don't mind a little necromancy, but I've been looking at the Heler-Elmal conflict between the Red Cow and Dolutha, to mine some adventure ideas... but I have had a few questions raised in my mind. Twisted Morganeth is stated to be a Summer Queen, but I couldn't really find any information about that whole concept. Do we have any established canon about this among the Orlanthi that I am missing, or are we looking at a more general "one girl is chosen as the best one via some rite and a contest for her hand ensues" type thing?

I took a look at Ian's old Red Cow material (pre-Coming Storm) and there the Priestess of Voria gets a status much like this (and again I wonder if this is a general Orlanthi/canon thing, or something that's only extant here?).

Your knowledge and ideas would be appreciated!

The single skill for parry and attack for weapons makes sense to me. Ultimately, in the guise of realism we can craft very many systems on how to break real combat down into statistics/operations and the different systems will have different weaknesses and advantages. None of them will ever be the truth, just like the map is not the territory. For a game with a bit of a simulationist bent like RQ, you're gonna want it feeling realistic though. The single skill certainly accomplishes this. 

You could separate parry and attack. You could also separate left side parry, right side parry, low parry, and all those for the attack. Realistically, my skill with doing each of those in simulated armed combat  is a little bit different. Is this relevant for the game? Maybe, but the primary factor in translating realism to game mechanics by far IMO is the overall skill with a set of weapons (ie. single sword, sword-and-dagger, sword-and-shield, etc).

My skill with the set I am using is the primary determinant of success, along with the interplay of the sets that are engaging each other - usually a mostly forgotten factor in most game systems, which is still hugely important in real life (RQ strike ranks go this way, but are so-so if a full simulation is the goal).

Also, I guess it is obvious and it only becomes even more obvious with experience in martial arts, but defense is of primary importance in armed combat. Hitting someone is relatively easy. Hitting someone without getting hit yourself is difficult. This is the core dynamic and that'd be idea around which I'd create any RPG combat system involving melee. 

7 hours ago, Sumath said:

I suppose if I'd just looked at the character generation system in RQG the answer was staring me in the face... 😀

I mean, yeah, now that you put it that way, this.

18 minutes ago, soltakss said:

What is Free Will?

Umath would say that it is Rebellion and tied to the Storm Rune, for he used Free Will to break Yelm's chains.

Mostal would say that it is Rebellion and would be tied to the Chaos rune, for Rebellion breaks the World Machine.

Yelm would say that it is Illusion, for anyone using Free Will is fooling themselves.

Mastakos would say that it is the ability to change things and is tied to the Movement Rune.

And this is why it could in fact be Chaos - because even if it makes sense and gives meaning to you [and your culture], it actually doesn't make sense and actually erodes meaning in other cultures.

Also, thinking about Movement =/= Stasis: I think both can be expressions of free will.

1 hour ago, Sumath said:

Is Chaos the source of Free Will in Glorantha?

That does make sense.

I don't have the impression that they are in any way an Orlanthi only phenomenon - Lunar regiments have wyters, cities everywhere have their city gods, temples their guardians, etc. I think they are an entirely universal thing (though not sure about the Westerners regarding this, now that I think about it).

5 minutes ago, metcalph said:

It's like saying that Jesus gave into the Devil in his sojourn in the desert - it just doesn't feel right.  

But the way you put it certainly feels like Gbaji.

Was Nysalor always Gbaji? Heck if I know! The undevourable devoured does sound like Gbaji to the trolls, though. 👺

3 minutes ago, metcalph said:

Nysalor is pretty much described earlier in the text and nobody's noticing any adamantine claws, otherworldly cloak etc,  Man-sized and insignificant is all that is said.  Moreover for him to be armed with those things contradicts the nature of Nysalor.  He is what he is, not what he is armed with.

So either he was never what he appeared to be and the devouring stripped his outer shell - or perhaps what was devoured could not be Nysalor, but turned out to be Gbaji...

Hmm, I find it amusing that for humans Gbaji is something like the truth-become-lie, or so, and for trolls he is food-become-, errh, unfood. Gbaji's power is that he is never who or what you expect him to be.

Also, it bears saying that the idea that the main benefit from dual wielding is extra damage or an extra attack is very dubious. The main benefit is defensive.

Again, this is difficult to put into text, while it would be very easy to physically demonstrate. You can only really attack with one weapon at a time* - for sure, you can follow that up with a secondary attack fairly quickly if you go all out offensive, but the defender can parry one after the other. What they can't do - as I pointed out above - is attack and defend at the same time, which is what the dual wielder CAN do, and which is the core of the advantage of using two weapons instead of one.

* I'm sure you can argue this with me, but discussing the details of this on the forum is difficult. Yes, you can swing two swords (for example) at the same time in certain ways, but I wouldn't consider that optimal.

BTW, this topic was also discussed on an earlier thread here: