Austin

On 10/15/2023 at 12:29 AM, g33k said:

When you come right down to it, this strikes me as kind of an amazing review & endorsement of the book.

Personally, jury's still out. I know Chaosium's been cooking Mythology for a long time, and I'm trying to put genuine brainpower into dissecting and fiddling with it. Trying to see if it's as revolutionary an approach to Glorantha and/or the RPG medium as the book & marketing implies. At some point I'll emerge from the confusion haze, just not entirely sure when.

That said, as a turbonerd who enjoys academic-style research and analysis, I've already got my money's worth from the book, for sure. I'm still trying to muddle through how to use it to play RuneQuest.

7 hours ago, Joerg said:

Gramps Mortal/Malkion

What leads you to associate Gramps and Malkion? I haven't got that notion from Mythology or Glorantha Sourcebook. Is it due to the Man Rune/humanist focus of the West?

7 hours ago, Joerg said:

I don't think that would be a valid conclusion of a Lightbringers' Quest. There is no known (to Harmast) way for backtracking the Court of Silence to the Lost in Hell and then the Banquet sites of the LBQ.

I don't think backtracking is needed? I think everything is forwardtracking, but maybe forwardtracking in an chronologically atypical direction.

Hey all, I've been working through the "Mythic Maps" chapter of Mythology to try putting together what info comes from where. Here's my lists thus far from the Locations entries. I haven't cross-checked with the actual maps to see what is/isn't there. My goal's trying to figure out what a particular source's perspective might look like as a way of trying to puzzle out interconnections and figure out how to use these during a RuneQuest game.

Shared Mythic Map Sources

The following Mythic Map locations, by Age, are shared among all sources.

Golden Age

• Kingdom of Perfection
• Old Man Wanders
• The Spike

Early Lesser Darkness

• The Spike

Middle Lesser Darkness

• The Spike
• Valind's Glacier

Late Lesser Darkness

• The Spike
• Valind's Winter Empire
• Greater Darkness
• The Break
• Gods' Defeat
• Tilted Sky
• The Void

Grey Age

• Homeward Ocean
• Magasta's Pool

Reconstructing Harmast's Narrative

The following is a listing of each Mythic Map location which is attributed to Harmast's Narrative (HN) in the Mythology book.

Golden Age

• Blue Dragon's Path
• Kero Fin
• Kingdom of Perfection (All)
• Murder of Yelm
• Old Man Wanders (All)
• Seeds of the Mountains
• The Spike (All)
• White Camp of Wisdom

Early Lesser Darkness

• Aroka Sea
• Black Isle of Introspection
• City of Departures
• Dini
• Dragon's Nest
• Ernaldela
• Genert's Garden
• Kero Fin
• Madadar Sea
• On Jorri Folk
• Rockwood Islands
• The Spike (All)
• Storm Mountains
• Top of the World
• Umath Mountains
• Umath's Ruins
• Umath's Throne
• Vadrus' Frozen Land
• Worcha's Rage

Middle Lesser Darkness

• Great Wood
• Hill of Gold
• Hykimi
• Island of Dusk
• Rockwood Mountains
• The Spike (All)
• Tada Land
• Top of the World
• Valind's Glacier (All)
• Vingkotlings

Late Lesser Darkness

• Dagori Inkarth
• Dragon's Nest
• Gates of Dusk
• Genert's Garden
• Guardian Forest
• Hill of Gold
• Kero Fin
• Luathela
• Palace of Black Glass
• The Spike (All)
• Stormwalk Mountain
• Tada's Land
• Top of the World
• Vadrus Land
• Valind's Winter Empire (All)
• Vingkotlings

Greater Darkness

• The Break (All)
• Castle of Lead
• Earthfall
• Gods' Defeat (All)
• Guardian Forest
• Hill of Gold
• Hill of Orlanth Lightbringer
• Icebreak
• Kero Fin
• Palace of Black Glass
• Shadowlands
• Stormfall
• Tadafall
• Tilted Sky (All)
• The Void (All)

Grey Age

• The Block
• Chaos Wasteland
• Dagori Inkarth
• Homeward Ocean (All)
• I Fought We Won
• Kero Fin
• Magasta's Pool (All)
• Palace of Black Glass
• Prax
• Shadowlands
• Storm Bull
• Stormwalk Mountain
• Unity Council

Reconstructing Stella Corpora

The following is a listing of each Mythic Map location which is attributed to Stella Corpora (SC) in the Mythology book.

Golden Age

• Black Camp of Introspection
• Empire of Brilliance
• Fire Mountains
• Genert's Garden
• Griffin Mountain
• Imperial Palace
• Kingdom of Enlightenment
• Kingdom of Logic
• Kingdom of Perfection (All)
• Kingdom of Wisdom
• Mernita
• Murder of Yelm
• Old Man Wanders (All)
• Oslira River
• Ratite Empire
• The Spike (All)
• White Camp of Wisdom
• Yamsur's Spire
• Yellow Camp of Enlightenment

Early Lesser Darkness

• Keniryan Sea
• Mastina
• Mernita
• Oslira Sea
• The Spike (All)
• Suvaria
• Yamsur's Kingdom
• Yestendites
• Middle Lesser Darkness
• Alkoth
• Blue Moon Plateau (?)
• Dara Happa Empire
• Hill of Gold
• Oslira River
• Pelanda
• Raibanth
• The Spike (All)
• Valind's Glacier (All)
• White Sea
• Yuthuppa

Late Lesser Darkness

• Blue Moon Plateau
• Dara Happa
• Hill of Gold
• Inland Seas
• Raibanth
• The Spike (All)
• Valind's Winter Empire (All)

Greater Darkness

• Alkoth
• The Break (All)
• Dara Happa
• Gods' Defeat (All)
• Hill of Gold
• Tallseed Forest
• Tilted Sky (All)
• The Void (All)

Grey Age

• Alkoth
• Hill of Gold
• Homeward Ocean (All)
• Horse Tribes
• Magasta's Pool (All)
• Raibanth
• Sky Dome
• Starlight Ancestors
• Yuthuppa

Takeaways

I ended up doing both Harmast's Narrative and Stella Corpora to try getting a feel for the intersections of Yelmite and Orlanthi mythology. I wouldn't really say I have any "conclusions" yet, more just fuzzy thoughts as I continue trying to process Mythology's content for an eventual review.

Valind's myths are surprisingly prominent, having the rare "All" attribution like the Spike or the Gods' Defeat. I was also intrigued there's no "All" location for the defeat of Chaos.

The Hill of Gold is surprisingly prominent, appearing throughout several sources and Ages of mythology. My intuition says that the Hill of Gold is another aspect of the I Fought, We Won myth. I'm also feeling more respect for Yelmalio while processing material. He comes across to me as a world-redeeming deity, because of guiding the Starlight Ancestors to weave the shattered fragments of Primal Light into the new world as the stars.

I believe the locales attributed to Harmast's Narrative can be used to trace specific paths through the Gods World. This is directly called out by the main text, but we can see it directly here, too. For example, the City of Departures exists in the Middle Lesser Darkness, but is only attributed to Harmast's Narrative during the Early Lesser Darkness. Thus, it's likely that Harmast's Westfaring began in the Greater Darkness, then went into the Lesser before descending to the Underworld (and off the map). I'm inclined to think Harmast emerged with Arkat from the Palace of Black Glass, since that was both a physical location and a place the chapter says he visited in multiple Ages.

(I'm aware that the Palace's cellars were in the Underworld, but I'm hesitant to immediately assume that's still true because I don't recall reading that factoid in Mythology or Prosopaedia.) 

Knowing how to get to the Spike seems like a really useful knack for Heroes, because it's present in so much myth. It makes sense to me that going there is dangerous - because Chaos eventually blows it up - but I don't know how an adventurer's choices can impact which Age they're traversing. This impact of choices is implied in the main body text in "Using These Maps," page 80, and supported with the page 14 smoke metaphor. But I'm not sure yet how to structure that at the table in a satisfying way - i.e. with cause-effect rules or guidelines which players can use to interact with the game. The mental activity I'm looking for isn't rigid cause-effect. It's more like when a player has to choose whether or not to attempt a Passion augment and risk success or Despair.

The Hill of Gold also seems like a useful Hero Plane "landmark." This is exemplified in Harmast's fifteenth heroquest (page 15).

Likewise Grandfather Mortal seems useful - but it feels pretty obvious that his story has major consequences. Either have a weird magic offspring, or get killed and go to Hell. Maybe both. I wonder if a Hero could take the role of Grandfather Mortal, go on Old Man Wanders to get somewhere, then leave Grandfather Mortal and become the offspring he has there, taking the descendant's shape and dodging Humakt.

The omnipresence of the Homeward Ocean & Magasta's Pool in the Grey Age makes me think that it's a recurrence of the Blue Age, leading into the Green of the First Age (and Sea Season), the Golden of the Second Age (and Fire Season), and now the Early Lesser Darkness of the Third Age (and Earth Season). Belintar's been killed, Yelm has (sort of) been dethroned, as we finish the Harvest and enter the bitter cold of the Middle Darkness before everything goes Wibbly Wobbly with the full-bore return of Chaos.

Then Harshax returning with the new Dawn. Hail Harshax!

On 10/13/2023 at 9:50 AM, svensson said:

But make no mistake... this is NOT the Glorantha neophyte's reference. ... Unless someone is really invested in Glorantha, they probably won't get a whole lot out of this book. If the Glorantha Sourcebook is Bachelor's in Glorantha Studies text, then Mythology is the Master's Degree document.

I'd broadly agree. Finished my first read today, and I've read the shorter sections at least twice. Wouldn't say I'm an "old hand" to Glorantha, but I have had a shitton of exposure, esp. since the Jonstown Compendium began. And I still feel like I'm trying to make heads and tails of the book.

17 hours ago, soltakss said:

It has some useful information that deepens the Roleplaying experience, but is not essential when running a game of RQ.

I'd also broadly agree with this.

I'm pretty sure I like Mythology, but I also have no idea what the hell to do with it. It feels very much like the target audience is "Glorantha scholars," not "RuneQuest players." Which I mean, I'm in both camps, so that's not really a bad thing. One of the things on my do-list is to go back through Lightbringers and try seeing how its general statement + cult writeups cohere with the four "Reconciliations" subsections (I believe that was in the "Understanding Mythology" chapter?).

I kind of think we're supposed to use the Mythic Maps to position heroquests using the Otherworld Home of a god, then the Mythos or the Monomyth to grab a story which players are trying to reach from that Otherworld Home? But this feels like I'm trying to just use the God Time as an "RPG campaign setting book" like Odyssey of the Dragonlords or Reach of the Roach God. Which I wouldn't call "bad" or "wrong" in any way - but I don't think that's the Mythology book's intent or purpose based on its discussion of the sacred and persistent denunciation of modern life on Earth.

I don't think I've been this puzzled by a book since I read Being and Nothingness, or perhaps the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Which I think is a compliment to Mythology?  I'm not puzzled often, and I do generally enjoy being confused. In particular, I think I'm confused because of a mix of complexity and Glorantha's ongoing vagueness. It's not the "handwavium" or "stage magician" species of confusion.

22 hours ago, Primo Cavaliere said:

I'm reading the books, still trying to learn.

Hope to start game mastering soon

Welcome to the Tribe! Be sure to let us know how it goes.

On 10/6/2023 at 3:34 PM, g33k said:

Is "two successes" (vs. just one) your version of a "critical success" then?

I see it as closer to a "special" than a "critical." As we've been playing, I've realized I need to rework starting skills + the matrix for "levels of success" so I'm not 100% sure yet. 😄 I'm currently thinking 1 success is "partial" with a chance for complications, 2 is "full" success, 3 is "critical" success (succeeding on both, and rolling doubles).

On 10/6/2023 at 5:00 PM, Saki said:

isn't the design space of using two skills on a single roll covered by Augmenting?

Correct! Two of my goals with this streamline experimenting are:

1. Resolve all tasks with one D100 roll
2. Minimize math in the task resolution process

I'm more familiar with RQG than BGB, so I'll point at how RQG's augments require two dice rolls for a single task. If memory serves BGB you add a portion of one skill's percentiles to another? Which is the type of annoying math I don't care for.

I do have a scale for circumstantial modifiers, steps of +/– 20%. But I'm trying to have the character sheet's value typically reflect exactly what the player needs to roll to know if they succeeded. So no calculating or checking Skill/5, Skill/20, etc. And if it doesn't work, I'll go back to the traditional way of doing it. But for the moment I'm more curious about trying to iterate than using the classic unchanged.

Something from a recent Patreon update which may be of interest to fellow gamers. We've been playtesting Eden Fallen, including experimenting with an iteration on BRP's core D100 mechanic.

Quote

 

Right now, my core mechanical concept is that you roll one D100 against a "general" skill and a "specialist" skill, if you have one relevant. This creates a matrix in which you can partially succeed by rolling under one skill, but over the other. It also creates situations in which a character can be a jack-of-all-trades, but the specialized character is still better at that particular task (since they can effectively score two successes).

This is working, so far, because I've reduced the number of skills compared to BRP quite a lot. My inspirations for this are OpenQuest, Dragonbane, and Rivers of London. Ultimately my goal is that all skills are on the main character sheet, so that you can roll the D100 once and compare easily to everything you need just on that front page.

Like I've noted, there's lots of roughness to smooth out, but so far this iteration on the BRP core mechanic seems to be intuitive and enjoyable for my players.

 

Treasures of Glorantha: V2 — Relics of the Second Age is now available in PDF on DriveThruRPG! 😄

It's also now available in Print on Demand!

***

I'm delighted to share that the promised follow-up to Treasures of Glorantha V1 is in production! This magic item compendium is your essential guide to powers lost in the Second Age. Coming on February 23rd, 2024!

On 9/13/2023 at 12:58 AM, Nick Brooke said:

100th print-on-demand title

God-damn. Nice!

IIRC this information was slated for the Mythology book at one point. But treat that as hearsay, not solid information.

4 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

The point is to create, not to add to canon.

100%.

4 hours ago, jajagappa said:

You can glean some of that from Jeff's posts

I appreciate the pointing and suggestions, genuinely. For me, the pleasure when brainstorming the Aeolian stuff (and these are basically all just scribbly notes in that same journal above) is in not gleaning information from extra sources. Sometimes I like sticking close to Chaosium's Glorantha, and sometimes I want to be distant. The Aeolian stuff started with my brain and my pen just... fucking around.

All of these ideas have stuff I love about them, stuff that engages me. It's often engaging in different ways, different problems. But there's a reason the Aeolian one says "non-Monomyth."

6 minutes ago, SDLeary said:

Have you seen... THIS?

Vaguely remember skimming it years ago. This screenshot from recording w/ the God Learners podcast is reflective of my brain on Aeolianism, for good or for ill. Unfortunately, the left-hand page is blurrier, but probably moderately more interesting. I don't think I have photos of my diagram laying out Aeol's Hexgram w/ the Power Runes included laying around.

1 hour ago, mfbrandi said:

Typo? “Non-monotheistic” or “henotheistic”? (I’ll admit “non-Monomyth” is much more intriguing, of course.)

Non-Monomyth is correct. I have some weird shit in mind about a worldview in which Orlanth is married to Entekos.

@jajagappa the weird henotheistic symbiosis is what interests me, to be honest.

41 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Why radio buttons, allowing only one choice?

Currently, I'm more interested in "Ooh, that sounds exciting!" than "huh, that's interesting." I think picking one rather than multiple gives me better feedback on that front.

I'm going through my scribble ideas journal and considering writing up a longer (100+ pages) project. Which sounds most interesting for your games? All are set roughly in Dragon Pass.

N.b. I'm not promising any of these (or even that a long project would be for RuneQuest, cuz I have some fun fiction ideas I'd like to write, too). Right now, just looking to gauge community interest in various ideas.

Oh hey, The Queen's Star earned its Silver medal. 😄 Thanks to everyone who picked it up!

On 8/2/2023 at 6:32 AM, Tirapheg said:

Crel, it sounds like Open Quest would fit the bill, looking at what you want for your rulesysytem. Check out River of Heaven, which is a sci fi setting using Open Quest to see if you like those rules. 

It's possible. I ended up deciding against OpenQuest because it's a bit too crunch-lite for my personal taste. Looking for my Goldilocks space. The current draft might be "lighter" than my general preference - I've been trying really hard to be crunch/math-averse in working through the gameplay basics - but I think that "lighter" spot might be the right level for this game.

It'll be interesting to see how the playtest goes. I'm expecting it to be a bit of a fustercluck, but a fun one. We're playing on basically a half-finished vomit draft because if we try waiting until I have good text, the rules will be too baked for my brain to handle revising.

Anyhoo, thanks for the recommendation! Much appreciated.

We've started our first playtest campaign for Eden Fallen! Tonight was character creation and session zero. Had a good time discussing the setting, muddling through my first draft's text, and describing baseline expectations of the setting (the currency is Meat, gravity is pumped through tubes, dystopian corporations are trying to establish a stranglehold on resources, etc.). Looking forward to diving into our first adventure next week! My notes are currently looking at a sort of murder mystery, but we'll see how it actually plays out. (Don't worry, none of this game's players use BRP Central.)

I've got one player with some RuneQuest experience, and the other two players haven't really played BRP-family games much before. I'm looking forward to seeing what some fresh eyes and unfamiliar players think of the game!

Eurmal the Fool subcult has Fumble, in the core rules it has Group Laughter, and there's no subcult in Lightbringers which has Group Laughter, so this might be an error? page 55

Also I think there's an error in the last sentence of the Lightbringer subcult (also page 55), but I'm not sure what the correct text is supposed to be.

On 8/6/2023 at 5:01 AM, Jape_Vicho said:

I think most RQ adventures are a bit too combat heavy for only 2 players, or too long. Cattle Raid has that problem IMO, too long and too dangerous. A rough landing seems a little better? Maybe by cutting on some enemies?  I'm open to check out adventures on the Jonstown Compendium ofc.

I'd try out the second adventure in the Starter Set - its name is something about Fire, can't recall exactly. On the upside, it's got investigation which should help mesh their CoC experience. On the downside, it's got investigation which may make them feel RQG is too similar to CoC. "The Pairing Stones" in The Pegasus Plateau & Other Stories would also work well. It's probably got one fight or duel in it, but a lot of it is social interaction and engagement. It's a contender for my personal favorite RQG adventure.

@Lordabdul's A Short Detour could be interesting. It has a pretty tough fight at the end, but I think it has potential to be a striking introduction to Glorantha's polytheistic relativism. I'd recommend reducing the final combat to just 1 or 2 antagonists (however the story plays out). The White Upon the Hills could also be a fun intro adventure - though I'll admit I remember less about its difficulty level than these other suggestions. It does a good job playing into the mythic/religious themes of the setting, which I tend to think is good for attracting new players.

From my own stuff, The Queen's Star could work well. I tried to set it up for cinematic action w/ one gritty duel at the end. You definitely could murderhobo it, but intense combat isn't required. If you played it with one warrior & one non-warrior from the pregens I'd recommend having the warrior deal with snobby Fire aristocrats, and the non-warrior interact with the plebs, until they piece together the clues and start breaking things themselves. (Don't worry if something breaks; it's supposed to break.)

10 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

If you remove the pictures, and focus on content, does it change the ratio ?

Art is content.

Cool! Sounds like a fun addition for merchants.

For those interested in reading reviews before buying, I've just put up a review of The Prosopaedia on my website. Hope it's interesting!