AlHazred

Where would you place the old Judges' Guild modules if you wanted to use them in Sartar? I'm not necessarily talking about the city of Lei Tabor, which is large and much more difficult to place (although if you have, I'd like to hear about it and how it went!), and more considering the Broken Tree Inn and the Hellpits of Nightfang, which are two of my favorites. (Hmm... Jennell Jaquays and Rudy Kraft, I guess I know why I liked them!) My thoughts: Broken Tree Inn (1979): the scenario places this between a "Human Empire" and "Tall Seed Forest," which is inhabited by elves. If the "Human Empire" is the Lunar Empire and the "Tall Seed Forest" is the Stinking Forest, then this could be placed near Slavewall or Goldedge (or between them), though that puts it perilously close to the Ivory Plinth and the Tusk Riders. City of Lei Tabor (1980): capital city of the feudal Duchy of Lei Tabor, a semi-independent seat of power and religion. Using a mix of Gloranthan and non-Gloranthan cults, I never used this as it would have required too much work to integrate into my campaign. As "the last vestige of a once mighty empire that still dominates the area," you could use it in a part of the Holy Country that has started to fragment due to the disappearance of the Pharaoh. It might also fit in Lunar Tarsh. Duck Pond (1980): "destroyed by Mallia worshippers, Duck Pond was once the site of a small village inhabited by Humans." This could go on the western edge of the Upland Marsh. Hellpits of Nightfang (1979): three limestone sinkholes that reek of Chaos. This is a good Chaos nest for a forgotten corner of your campaign. Snakepipe Hollow and Larnste's Footprint are both great possibilities; I think I used the former when I ran RQ3 back in the day. Legendary Duck Tower and Other Tales (1980): "Long-lost ruined city and deserted citadel ... Tales of fabulous riches and terrible monsters ... Rumors of horrible dooms and powerful magic." This is a good candidate to go in the Upland Marsh proper.

There are actually two Great Spirits of the Daisyworld, Lovelock and Watson, but they are not antagonistic, instead working together. But far from being benevolent, the sensitives report that they seem to be attempting to bring the Sun back to the Earth (making it all hotter), obviously by removing Air/Storm altogether!

Frankly, I think part of it comes from the Simon Necronomicon, which attempted to link the Cthulhu Mythos and ancient Middle Eastern elements in kind of a ham-fisted way. I know it left a sour taste in my mouth at the time, and bringing up Mesopotamian or Sumerian Mythos sources always brings it back to mind; it was that bad.

Ah, yes, the Taloned Countess of the Sunnyset Empire....

strikes the speaker with a mystic strike too quick to be seen by even the inner eye "Brithini is the most perfect creature ever to sanctify Glorantha with the imprint of its foot."

To throw an additional wrinkle into the mix, I always* interpreted the "Issaries" rune as "Equal Exchange" -- the exchange of goods or services with an attempt at equity between the participants. The similar "Lanbril" rune from HQ2 is "Unequal Exchange" -- taking from another without equitable return. These interpretations make the Trade/Theft runes something of a pair of minor Power runes. * From RQ2, except we didn't have any "official" Theft rune at the time; that wouldn't come until HQ.

Regarding the reduction to the original RQ2 runes, on another thread, @Mark Mohrfield had this to say: It's a Lunar Plot™! Just watch, Air/Storm will be next! "It's just a minor variation of Sky, you'll see, it'll be fine!"

It's a Lunar plot! Air/Storm is next!

(puts on dogmatic lenses) These professions are not mentioned by Plato, and furthermore, there were ten Atlantean kings, not twelve (Critias 113e ff.).

I have this set, but I've never run it. I never had what I would have considered the "right group" to get the right experience, and the first edition was a little uneven in parts. The most recent version is amazing and makes me sad I never got to run it.

I will sell you my physical copy for $99! At that price, it's a steal! Just kidding, I couldn't bear to part with it, even if it is missing a couple of stories (it's the first collection).

I haven't read any of Dan Brown's stuff, but I really liked the first edition of The DaVinci Code, which was called Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Very interesting for a conspiratorial-minded teenager! EDIT: Or was HBHG actually a second edition of the French Dossiers Secrets? The conspiracy (and BS) go ever deeper the more you look!

The Bat is basically relegated to questionable areas at the edge of the Empire, where it can feed on foreign barbarians and unnecessary locals. That said, I absolutely think Thanatar would be present in the Empire. Thanatar provides magic for people to gain occult power and knowledge without fulfilling necessary initiatory requirements -- a kind of envy I suspect is very present in such a High Magic area with a huge amount of varied beliefs. They would definitely operate under a similar cloud to how they operate in Sartar and other regions, very much suppressed when discovered. In fact, I believe it's mentioned in CoT that the discovery of a Thanatar group is one of very few things that will unite Lunar and Sartarite forces in order to destroy it.

Or Elon Musk!

It's worth noting that each of the Lightbringer deities has their own story of "starting the Lightbringers quest and finding these other gods along the way." Chalana Arroy started it to heal the world, Lhankor Mhy started it to recover the Light of Knowledge, etc. The only one who canonically doesn't is Eurmal (of course). I'm not sure what "Flesh Man" cultists would have as that "starting the LBQ" story, since I don't think I've ever seen such a writeup.

I have allowed Flaws to be used as Augments, but there are consequences. In the example you give, if a character used their "Hideous Scars" flaw to augment an Intimidation ability, the person intimidated would spread the information among their own circles ("Family," "Clan," or similar). Also, I'd generally only allow something like that in a specific case, like if the person being intimidated had a "Vain About Appearance" or similar Flaw of their own.

When I wrote a convention scenario for "sci-fi horror" many, many moons ago, I created multi-part pre-gens. It was made in Hero System. You selected an Occupation which gave you skills, a Background which gave you characteristics and a few abilities, and a Secret (which in a few cases overrode the other two cards). The Backgrounds I made were things like "Heavyworlder," "Deathworlder," "Lightworlder" (or maybe "Belter"? I don't remember exactly), "Core Worlder," and so on. I'll have to find the list I made, but they would make good generic breakouts.

Do we have stats for Mr. Varosh, in any system?

How about The Guns of Navarone (1961)?

Interesting not to see Saving Private Ryan (1998) on that list.

"Look, I wrote this document, and I was the one who carefully hid the mistakes in there, and they're so well hidden even I can't find them!"

Waddle Greenbeak was a favorite-to-hate character in the two 80s-era games I got to play in. He was apparently always providing leads to great treasures, and then in the heat of the moment he'd grab the best thing and make his escape. The two games I got to join in, the group was hunting him because he'd gotten the Ring of Elkoi, and meanwhile they were the ones holding the bag when the citadel guards caught them coming out of the tomb. (EDIT to clarify: He'd grabbed the ring and beat the rest of the group out of the tomb by triggering a trap they'd bypassed, then collected a reward from the guards for alerting them to a "group of tomb robbers" about to make off with the clan founder's treasures.) I'd definitely make a few of the other ducks say they were his clanmates, when secretly they're trying to find him to fulfill the bounty on his head...

Which is similar to an older symbol for IO Interactive, who make the Hitman series of games, which are about the surgical use of Death, by a character who does not know his own history, i.e. has severed social ties. Invisible Orlanth is basically Humakt!

You cribbed this from Griffin Mountain! I mean, I think every GM who read the book cribbed that encounter for some campaign! I always loved that the Griffin Mountain vision was extremely not-explained -- you could draw all sorts of conclusions from it, based on which direction your prejudices lay. I think any similar Vision in the Sky should be similarly vague and up for interpretation for MGF reasons.