Tupper

When I read the core rule book, I came away with the impression that spirits were incorporeal, and mostly interacted with people either by being bound by shamans and spell users, or making mischief by possessing people after spirit combat. However, when I read the section on spirits in the bestiary, I became a bit confused. Some of the spirits there fit the bill of incorporeal creatures, but some of them seem all too solid. The Nymph has hit points and regular stats, but is described as "bodiless", so she can presumably discorporate at will. The Snake Daughter isn't described as "bodiless", but the prose accompanying her says she can occupy her stone statue, so presumably she's incorporeal the rest of the time. The Vough and the Sprul Pa don't seem to have any such caveat. The Vough can turn into water, and Sprul Pa can merge with the ground, but neither of these are really discorporating. Could someone please tell me what it means to be a spirit? I guess my definition of "being incorporeal and living in the spirit realm" seems a bit off when considering the Vough and Sprul Pa.

Awesome. Thanks for that! I'm working through Fronela now, and the bit that has me worried is the Kingdom of War. It seems to be pretty active, and could have expanded since 1621. Does anyone know where I'd read about what happened there?

Thanks for the comments. Looks like Appendix J could be the business. I definitely noted the events in the character generation timeline, and trying to understand what they all meant was part of my motivation in reading the Guide to Glorantha. I'm guessing the other region (besides Dragon Pass) where things could get a bit funky is Fronela, where the Syndic's Ban is slowly lifting (and more could have lifted by 1625). I figure I'll cross that bridge when I get to that chapter of the Guide.

I read through Runequest Glorantha, and while I found it very cool, there were a lot of comments that left me fairly confused. What was a God Learner? Who (or what) was Belintar? To rectify my confusion, I bought the Guide to Glorantha, and have been reading through it from start to finish. Things are starting to come into focus, but I often find myself searching through the pdf to figure where places are who people are who are referred to earlier in the book before they're "defined" later. It's been a very fun read ... up until yesterday. Yesterday, I hit the Dragon Pass section, and read that Dragon Pass was governed by Fazzur Wideread. "That doesn't sound right", says I, and looked in RQG. Then I realised that RQG is set in 1625, whereas the Guide to Glorantha is based on a present date of 1621. This seems a bit of a snafu, since it would be pretty natural for someone to want to use Guide to Glorantha as a reference for a campaign using RQG. My question then is: what happened between 1621 and 1625? Where would one find this information? I see two potential sources: the Glorantha Sourcebook or The King of Sartar. Which one am I supposed to read to understand what's happened "post Guide"? Or do neither of these help with this campaign date mismatch?

Looking at the newest version (there's a newer one since I downloaded last), it seems to be getting bigger. According to its properties, it also hasn't been optimised. I find quite a few pdfs (from various companies) can be a bit slow on the iPad. I've got into the habit of feeding them through adobe acrobat pro and optimising them for online publishing. On my tablet I've noticed no decline in visual quality, but I've sure noticed some big speed improvements in rendering!

That makes sense to me. Looks like in the new version of the pdf the example has been amended to match your reasoning: 3 points for the basic spell, and 2 points per extra intensity.

I noticed that rpgnow had a new version. I'd bought it from Chaosium, so I hightailed over to their website, and downloaded the new version.

Looks like the latest version of the pdf has the correction to the wording for tied results.

I think you make them as philosophers. However, some of their cults (eg the Invisible God) don’t get a write up in the core book.

That’s my read of the penalty he should face, but in the example he seems to quadruple the intensity cost but only double the basic cost.

I'm a bit confused by the example on p386 of RQG. In it Damastol wants to cast Logical Clarity (truth and dispel). 1. Why would Damastol's affinity to illusion (coming from Truth) matter if the spell uses Truth (and not illusion)? 2. Assuming Damastol has both rune and technique unmastered, shouldn't the spell cost him *8* points to cast (2*4) and 4 per additional level of intensity? The example says 4 to cast and 4 per level of intensity. Any idea what I'm missing here?

I'm a bit confused by this spell. It seems to do two things: create an effigy for the adventurers to fight *and* summon a powerful adversary. My read of the spell is that the adventurers don't fight the effigy until the end of the ritual. However, presumably the powerful adversary could arrive before the ritual finishes (e.g. you do a 1 day ritual, but the most powerful adversary is 3 hours away). Would that interrupt the ritual? My main confusion, however, is why to do this in the first place. I get that when the effigy is destroyed, the adventurers might get back a load of ritual points (which could be handy), but I don't see how the magic resistance bonus could ever be used. The caster's posse gets it when the effigy is destroyed, and it lasts for the duration of the "ceremony". Isn't the effigy's destruction the end of the ceremony? In which case, this bonus would never be in effect.

That's awesome. The numbers make a lot of sense. A hide shield is probably lovely to carry around (since it doesn't weigh much) but its ability to stop a heavy attack is probably a bit limited compared to a wooden shield.

Wooden shields are more expensive than wicker shields, which in turn are more expensive than hide shields. However, I couldn't find any mechanical difference between (say) a medium wooden shield and a medium hide shield. Is there any advantage (in RQG) to paying the extra for a wooden shield?

Fantastic. Thanks for the answers everyone. That makes perfect sense: Go strike rank by strike rank if there might be interaction (either because of the unengaged person potentially attacking or someone else potentially attacking them). Just move them and be done if there's no danger of attacks.

Newbie question about Runequest Glorantha here. In the combat section, a round is described as running: 1. Players/GM declare actions for all characters. 2. Unengaged characters movement is resolved. 3. Attacks (magic, missile, melee) are resolved in order of strike ranks. 4. Book-keeping. My read of this is that movement is something that happens *before* combat. So if using a ranged attack, I can move and then attack, but not attack and then move. That seems tidy, because then everyone moves, and combat is resolved based on where everyone is *after* moving. However, in the example on page 195, Vasana does something much more complicated. She casts a spell at strike rank 5, and *then* moves 9 metres, along with drawing her bow (taking her to Strike rank 10 when she's finished, since drawing the bow takes 5 strike ranks). I can see two ways to interpret this: 1. Vasana's actions are what she declares. However, they get implemented in the order prescribed for the round: first she moves 9m, then she casts her spell (at strike rank 10, because of her other actions? Or at strike rank 5 because it's taking place [theoretically] before she moves?). She ends the movement phase 9m from where she started the round, and this will be her location when attacks are resolved. 2. Movement and actions occur by strike rank. So Vasana is standing still for strike ranks 1-5. Then from strike ranks 6-10, she starts moving. If someone attacks her on strike rank 7 (say), she will be 6 metres from where she started. Interpretation 1 seems consistent with how the round is described, but interpretation 2 seems more consistent with the description of Vasana's activities (and potentially the example of firing a bow twice, where the two attacks happen at different strike ranks). However interpretation 2 seems to mean that the round sequence should read: 1. Players/GM declare actions for all characters. 2. Beginning with strike rank 1: (a) unengaged characters moving on SR1 move. (b) attacks on SR1 are resolved 3. Repeat step 2 for the remaining strike ranks (2-12). 4. Book-keeping. Or, in other words, the combat round gets resolved strike rank by strike rank, even for people who are moving. Which is correct? Any wisdom gratefully received! 😀