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TREASURES OF GLORANTHA VOLUME ONE — DRAGON PASS

23 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

And there are also some fascinating mythic ramifications re: the way you treat defeated Lunars, which we'll be saying more about in our Moonbroth Oasis book. If you treat someone the way the Goddess was treated, you're reinforcing her myth cycle. Smart move.

Meaning Orlanthi executions = the sacrifice of Teelo Norri? Hm, interesting. I like that. It's the right flavor of cheeky for Glorantha.

23 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

I absolutely think that it should work in Glorantha: that is, the way you treat a broken, down-and-out Praxian brave reflects the way you'd treat the injured god Waha, and Waha knows it, etc.

Yeah, that's a good example of the story trope or archetype which is in my head, the "Everyman is the deity" sense of it. I might try muddling a bit with Campbell and seeing how/if those types of stories map onto his Hero's Journey at all.

I feel like Glorantha's authors tend to focus on the "big myth" a lot of the time, which makes sense, but makes these sort of folk tales or "small myths" get lost in the mire.*

*N.B. I haven't read the whole Stafford Library, don't yell at me if it's filled with little folk stories.

I was brainstorming some adventure ideas for my campaign recently, and one that popped up was to use some version of the "God on the Road" trope. I don't know if it has an "official" name, but I'm thinking of when, in myths or in folk tales, a god or other important being disguises itself like an ordinary human and walks among the people. Prominent in my memory is the story of the angels going to Sodom and Gomorrah in the Bible (along with some of Jesus's appearances after death, I believe), but as I recall this is a trope common to other belief systems as well. For example, I believe Odin's a bit infamous for doing so.

Does this trope exist in your Gloranthas? How does it interact with the Great Compromise?

My first thought was something like this, involving Orlanth, because one of the adventurers is currently dealing with religious struggles on whether or not to accept Argrath's weird version of Orlanth-worship. The adventurer's currently haunted by the spirit of a pal of Alakoring Dragonbreaker who, as you may suspect, is not a fan of the King of Pavis. But shouldn't the Compromise prevent this sort of deity-wearing-human-guise from occurring?

45 minutes ago, GAZZA said:

Hang on. RQG rules say that only Rune levels can learn enchantments (as Rune spells, that is - but I presume that's what you mean).

Mhm. And I suspect that, because Viborna is an initiate in Chaosium's adventure, that means Gustbran is an exception to that rule. Obviously I'm doing some subjective interpretation, and trying to read between the lines here.

You can find the adventure I'm referring to here.

Also, God-Talkers do get access to enchantment spells:

Quote

A God-talker has all the benefits of being an initiate of the cult. A God-talker can replenish Rune points by leading Sacred Time and holy day sacrifices, and by performing other sacrifices to the god. A God-talker may gain access to cult Enchantment spells. (page 278)

2 hours ago, Manu said:

Gustbran is the redsmith God. But which spells does he give? Enchant(Bronze) is useless. Sumon/Control(small fire elemental)?

Viborna, in the free adventure "The Rattling Wind," is an initiate and knows three Rune spells: Enchant (bronze), Find (copper), and Magic Point Enchantment.

Enchant (bronze) isn't totally useless. Enchanted bronze lets you injure Telmori and spirits. It's not as flashy as other enchanted Rune metals, though.

Since Viborna's an initiate, I suspect that one of the upsides to the Gustbran cult is that you don't need to be a Rune Master to learn enchantment spells.

44 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Similarly, I don't get why illuminated can't be attacked by Spirits of Reprisal. This "immune to" seems very hand-wavium, rather than actually mechanically thought through.

In the past, I've understood this as less "immune to" and more "doesn't trigger them to attack." So if a Humakti with "Don't eat meat" eats meat, normally Humakt would know and send the spirit of reprisal. Now Humakt doesn't know, and that's what "immune" here means. If that Humakti would get into spirit combat with the sword-breaking spirit, they could still be beaten—they aren't immune to taking spirit combat damage, and being inflicted with the curse.

I see nothing stopping an allied spirit from tattling to the god. I don't know exactly the different linkages required for losing RP, but it could be something like the god can't identify the Illuminate anymore, maybe? ... Which could just lead to a large-scale withdrawal or smiting instead.

In general, I see it as when a worshiper uses Divination to ask if the Illuminate broke the cult rules, the god's like "nope, they're cool." Maybe the Ban spell doesn't even stick? Or the Illuminate, when viewed with Soul Sight, still always appears as "in good standing."

20 hours ago, Chekmx said:

So from a logistical stand point would you be looking at something like this  https://github.com/eepMoody/open5e?  

I honestly don't know. When I explore that link, I see a lot of things which look like coding, and that's a region I have no knowledge or competence regarding. There's a reason I've started writing fiction and pen-and-paper games, not video games!

2 hours ago, Megapolimancy said:

I'm a newcomer to BRP, but while social distancing for the past month the SRD has really inspired all of my tinkering. 

Welcome! I hope the BRP OGL's able to encourage your tinkering. If you're interested in OpenBRP, at the moment the best way to help is to take a look at the outline/concept doc I posted and provide some feedback. I'm still not in a place where I'd say "Yes, this project is taking off" or even "Yes, I am in charge of and running this thing." At the moment, I'm still sort of gauging interest because the simple truth is I can't do it all myself.

On the feats discussion:

I've been lurking and letting it mull around in the back of my head, and @Mankcam's post leads me to think that a Feats chapter shouldn't be in OpenBRP's genre packs because they, like "High Magic" in my OpenBRP: Fantasy outline, fit best when tailored to a specific setting. I additionally am leaning away from them because they seem, from Lloyd's comments, to integrate best with an XP system. Since the SRD follows the skill-based approach to character improvement, rather than an XP pool like Mythras or Revolution D100 (to the best of my understanding of those games), and since I think OpenBRP should be as exactly compatible as possible with the SRD, I don't believe OpenBRP should use Feats.

HOWEVER. I do think an OpenBRP: Feats pack could be useful for players, gamemasters, and game designers. So, a separate pack describing one or more modalities for introducing Feats into the OpenBRP system. So, the author of a scenario could say "This book uses the rules from OpenBRP: Fantasy and OpenBRP: Feats" and so on.

Naturally there will be a limit to how modular an OpenBRP system can be, but I think this sort of modular approach best suits the project.

Why do many sorcery spells use strength v. magic points, rather than POW v. POW?

I love the illustration of Three Emeralds Temple.

11 hours ago, Gallowglass said:

My shaman PC was fairly scrupulous and never tried to capture any fresh ghosts, but I don’t see why you couldn’t do that by the rules. It just seems like a nasty, amoral thing to do.

I have a player who is fixated on learning to do this exact thing.

Currently, I'm planning to let him play the hubris game with this one. It'll go badly some day.

What prompted the choice to return the paradigm for sorcerous knowledge to learning individual spells in RQG, as opposed to HQG where a sorcerer learns a grimoire? Was there something in the process of writing the Guide which changed the approach?

What about the nature of Gloranthan sorcery is the Free INT game mechanic simulating?

I remember folks noting that the forthcoming Cults book has a treatment on the Horned Man, Kolat, and shamanism, to some degree. Does anyone know if it includes spirit cults like those shared by @David Scott or @davecake?

I managed to steal a few hours from my JC stuff after all. Here's a sample outline of what's in my head for OpenBRP: Fantasy. It's very, very rough, in my opinion, but I hope it gives an idea what I think would be a useful community product.

OBRP Fantasy outline.pdf

On Stunts:

I like the ideas being tossed around regarding a stunts/feats-like subsystem. I think that they could work with the vague "OpenBRP-ness" which floats somewhere adjacent to my coherent thoughts. In particular, I like the notion of them as an effect connected with Special skill successes, because that means that any character can, potentially, attain access to them. As @Jakob commented, I agree that one of the major draws to BRP is that anyone can, with time and practice, do anything. While I don't personally share the same reservations about how feats can lock away particular abilities in other systems—like Lloyd, I enjoy how they add an additional layer of "specialness" or customization—I don't think a stunt subsystem with an "unlock" framing matches the style of BRP.

Above all else, I think that if some sort of stunt system is used in OpenBRP, it should be in such a way that it can been used in all OpenBRP genre/theme packs.

This emphasizes the sort of mechanical unity which, for example, D&D's 3.5 third-party content had, and which some D100 content does not. I'm saying this from the perspective as a GM that tries porting other content into his RQ game and ultimately hand-waves a lot of stuff, rather than actually playing it by its rules. I don't think that the D100 family has as much overlap as is often claimed. In comparison, pretty much anything written under the Pathfinder/3.5 OGL, in my experience, could be played with other core rules using that SRD.

Now, I do think that a skill-based stunt subsystem is viable in any genre; at least, I can't think of one where it wouldn't fit. But if OpenBRP is to include stunts, I think it should be a consistent variation on the core BRP OGL, which each OpenBRP pack supports.

22 hours ago, colinabrett said:

I'd be interested in joining in with this project, if you have room for a new collaborator.

I'm happy to have more people involved. As I noted in the OP, while this idea happened to pop into my own head I'm not necessarily the best person to manage/organize it. As with most things, I suspect the general process shall be "let us muddle it out together."

11 hours ago, Raleel said:

You know, as much as I like Mythras, I understand this comment. It is a very dense book for content, and can be very hard to take in. I swear to you, it took me quite a long time to really have it all ingested. 

Which is frustrating for me, because the main way I learn a new game is typically to read the core book cover-to-cover. One of these days I'll get through it, so that I can manage to talk my friends into playtesting it a bit. A lot of the Thennla content seems like an interesting twist on RQ(G)'s themes.

@Lloyd Dupont I really liked the idea of stunts. i'm a bit hesitant on the execution, but that's mainly because I'm a fan of the skill-use model, rather than the XP points model for character improvement. That (and your conflicts model) are elements I'm planning to read more closely.

18 hours ago, soltakss said:

It seems that Spell Net just acts as a stored casting of a spell

Yep, that was my goal. In our prior home campaign, we used a heavily bastardized version of Petersen's RQ3 sorcery. Sorcerers using the Hold Art was something of a trope for us, and Spell Net was my attempt to RQG-ify how that felt, without introducing different sorcery rules.

18 hours ago, soltakss said:

By the way, you seem to have page headings for "A Murder in Sylthi" with strange page count with "Conrad" and starting at Page 16.

Ah, that would be because I excerpted the PDF from the Word doc of a scenario I'm working on, set in Sylthi. Forgot to remove the header.

9 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

No "Wrest Sorcery"? I'd quite like to Wrest someone's Spell Net!

That's a good point. I think it'd be difficult to target a Spell Net, because it's not an externally obvious spell (like True Sword, for example), but definitely possible. There should be a Wrest Sorcery, for sure. My brain just didn't end up there.

9 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

If you Wrest an Extensioned spell, does it revert back to the original target when the Wrest spell ends?

I'd say no, since Wrest is Instant. That might mean that Wrest ought to be Temporal, and only last for its own duration. I can't recall if an Extension'd spell (or Rune spells in general) can be canceled prematurely. I think that has significant impact on the sorcery spell's game balance. It'd be a huge feel-bad for players if an enemy sorcerer stole their Extension'd Shield, and then they got neither the spell effect nor their Rune points until it ended.

9 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

What if you Wrest a spell that a shaman is keeping up with Spell Extension?

Same. As written, you keep the Wrested spell. Of course, a shaman can just go "I'm not extending it anymore" and then the spell only lasts 2 minutes, as I understand ending a Spell Extension.

On 4/8/2020 at 7:25 AM, Lloyd Dupont said:

Can you let me know what you think of this set of homemade homebrew rules.. I think they should help bring the D&D feels to BRP.. (particularly Fireball are usable!)

I largely agree with g33k's comments. I've only gotten to skim your document. It does look pretty interesting, but probably more fleshed-out than what's in my mind. But I'll have to give it a more comprehensive read, and re-read the BRP OGL to see where it does and doesn't diverge from the core.

Just now, g33k said:

N.B. -- Vance's Lyonesse is coming to d100.  TDM has licensed it from the Vance estate.

Hm, interesting. I've never read Vance's works (a flaw, I know), but mostly know it as a descriptive term for D&D's "cast and forget" wizardry.

8 hours ago, g33k said:

I think the thrust of @Crel's remarks (and effort) is NOT to capture the "D&D Vibe" (particularly class/level) but to produce a simple but robust (rather than minimalist, as per the original BRP-OGL from Chaosium) fantasy rendition of BRP, that can serve (at least the fantasy segment of) BRP'dom the way the WotC OGLs serve the d20 crowd.

Yep, exactly what I meant. Thanks, @g33k.

I've read neither Classic Fantasy nor Magic World, although the prior's been on my read-list for some time. Partially in hopes of finding it more readable than Mythras. I like Mythras's rules, and their setting books have been fun to read (in particular, I really enjoyed Sorandib), but that core rulebook has been a slog for me to read cover-to-cover.

I see an "OpenBRP: Fantasy" as filling the same sort of ecological niche as 5E, not actually trying to reproduce the style and feel of D&D within a D100 system.

Although, I do have some ideas for "Vancian" D100 magic...

I'm experimenting with some sorcery spells tailored for use by the Black Arkati in a scenario I'm writing (or other Illuminates, I suppose), and looking for a bit of feedback, if anyone's interested in looking it over. Not necessarily meant to be a comprehensive write-up, just a few spells to make an adventure more interesting or unusual.

The general theme I'm going for is "meta-sorcery," where they manipulate magic with their magic, letting them do strange things normal sorcerers/priests/shamans can't.

Arkati Sorcery draft.pdf

4 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

nothing in the description of Sanctify says it lasts longer than 15 minutes

This is something that has confused/frustrated me as well. In particular, in my campaign what came up was the adventurers wanting to use Divination while away from town (which requires being cast within a Sanctify).

I've ruled for my game that Sanctify basically lasts "as long as needed to do one thing." So if you need it up all night to get an answer in your dreams from your Divination spell, it's there. If you need it for three hours so you can do the Dance of the Falling Rains for Orlanth to get your Rune points back, it's good for that too. But it wouldn't be enough to sanctify a temple indefinitely—that only comes about through heroquesting (I don't think even an enchantment ritual does it, although I can see the heroquest requiring sacrifices of POW or other characteristics/goods).

it's also worth keeping in mind that some locations are inherently sanctified, like Larnste's Table and the Hill of Orlanth Victorious. They're sacred, and considered a temple, not because of the actions of mortals but because of what happened there during the God Time.

13 minutes ago, Sumath said:

But hell, it was a clever move by the players so I'm happy to have rewarded their ingenuity. Plus the ensuing Berserker rage was too entertaining to pass up.

Oh, you definitely made the right choice—I wasn't trying to critique your gamemastering!  That's a great story-telling moment.

23 minutes ago, gochie said:

It just seems so deadly to NEED a Chalana Arroy cultist around when poison attacks are fairly common, and so fast-acting.

I think another factor is that they're so dangerous, often because they're connected with a creature's CON. So a high-CON creature is harder to kill (more likely to get a poison hit in), harder to resist, and deals more damage even if you do resist.

It's tricky. I feel like even just giving full-healability to poisons works OK, because of how much damage they do. Taking 3-6 points of unhealable damage feels okay to me. Not great, but okay. The unhealable rule has felt, to me, kind of like "have all antidotes on hand at all times, or roll a new adventurer," when you factor in all the different sources of poison. It feels like it's a rule aimed at low poison amounts, that just sort of stuck around for CON/POT 18 autokill monsters.