Austin

If you want some wild wizardry, I really enjoy Sandy Petersen's RQ3 Tekumel spells. We play them mashed atop of other RQ/BRP games. I'd suggest giving them a look just for the spell list, so you've got some more choices for players. There's some really creative ones, and my personal favorite variation of the "fireball the room" spell--Doomkill.

RQG p.281 (1st printing): Rune Lords do not, by default, have a specific amount of time which must be dedicated to the cult (unlike Rune Priests, which require 9/10ths). They must come when the cult calls, but otherwise have "a fair measure of independence under normal circumstances." So, get to do what you want--but when you get work, it's the hardest work. 9/10ths "income" is gonna require GM interpretation. I'd personally rule any "cash" goods after divided by the adventuring party. I like @soltakss's solution to magic items, for ones powerful enough to interest the cult. If a bigger, badder RL/Hero wants it, tough luck. It also looks like a RL's profession is considered as Noble, beyond just the Vasana example. "The Rune Lord is trained for free in their cult skills. They gain seasonal checks for the Noble occupational skills" (Ibid). Do other GM's anticipate making POW purchaseable by their parties? I feel like @Kloster's 200L/POW makes sense in context, but I'm currently not thinking that POW will ever be available to buy in the same way that spells as a service are. In my Glorantha, that's going to be something the players have to do themselves, or earn as a reward for substantial task.

That's kind of how I'm inclined to rule it, for now. Sort of the RQG equivalent of the Christian church camp "Hey big G, it's all of us down here!" and gets the god's attention for as long as you're doing god stuff. My issue with it being permanent is that it gives the caster "radar," basically, regarding noninitiates in the area. Feels a bit like "baby's first Glowline" too, in that you can just spend an RP and dedicate an area to a god. It feels like a permanent sacred space should require more sacrifice than that. Aaand I know if it's permanent at least my players will find a way to abuse it...

I'm looking at Sanctify in anticipation for my players using Divination to figure out where the heck a villain ran off to with the McGuffin, and it doesn't seem to have a duration listed? Does it just last as long as it's needed? It just has the Ritual tag, without Temporal or a Duration tag in addition. Thanks!

A little surprised that no one's pointed it out yet, but this is very intriguing to me. Looking forward to the news! No way it'll be an OGL but... a boy can dream, can't he?

@EpicureanDM, this is the thread I was talking about.

I made these statblocks while adapting the adventure "The Ancient City" from the Wheel of Time D20 campaign Prophecies of the Dragon for use in my RQG game. Figured since I spent the time writing them up, I may as well share them, in case anyone needs some quick stats apart from what's in the Bestiary. The file's also got the McGuffin artifact the adventurers are looking for, the Artifice of Brassion (written up in the Plunder format), as well as a high-powered Lunar priestess, Kryalyn, and her initiate companion Llana (both formerly of the Aes Sedai, in WoT). It should be noted that the Artifice isn't exactly intended for player use. But, if they manage to figure it out, good on 'em, I say. In the source material, it's used to "gentle" a male channeler. I.e., stop magician from being magic. broo warband.doc

Important to note here that, in the new edition, according to my memory you can both create enchantments over time (don't need to drop the POW all at once), and can have others contribute so long as the enchanter spends at least one POW. So this sort of stuff is still a huge investment, but is more viable, more quickly, than in RQ3. @EpicureanDM there was a thread a while back around here that was looking into Linked spell & other enchantment tricks/abuses which might be of interest to you. A notable, simple one to my mind is linked Disruption matrices.

Have you checked out the RQG GM Screen Pack? It's sort of a small sandbox, based on the Colymar Tribe in Sartar, and intended for beginning adventurers. Honestly, I feel like you're better off with your early adventures being plot-driven, rather than "explore this area!" Glorantha's such a mess of myths, gods, cultures, etc. that I reckon just tossing brand new players in with minimal footing will be more likely to dissuade them of the setting, rather than persuade. The GM's Pack does a decent job of this, which is why I bring it up (and even then, there's a lot of setting in that book; around half the pages). Focus on "Orlanth & Ernalda: Yay! Chaos: Boo!" and grow more complex. Likewise, "Colymar: Yay!" and "My Clan: Yay!" Part of the challenge, IMO, to running a game of slow and organic discovery is that RQG's premise is adventurers who already are deeply immersed in the setting. This is cool and different from other RPGs, but I feel it adds dissonance when a player knows substantially less than their adventurer. Knowing one region and discovering another feels coherent (like Sartarites exploring Prax, or any human exploring the Elder Wilds), but discovering your own homeland, or exploring while not really knowing anything about your own culture? That's why I suggest the GM's Pack: it starts very small, with just a hamlet, and tries to drive the adventurers with a plot about that hamlet, introducing them to the area and building into the exploration and discovery phase.

One voice among many, but this is definitely my highlight. Thanks for the info!

Or that's the reason, maybe, why it didn't come to mind. Our game's core engine was RQ3; I've never touched RQ2. Yayyy versions nonsense!

And this inadvertently highlights another great point--how and why particular things are dangerous changes a lot. I never played a game high "level" enough to worry about Multispell 4, so that much Disrupt wasn't something in my mind!

My take on the rumor mill is that the most likely things we'll see are a new scenario or three, starting on the convention circuit. The forthcoming books I've seen the most buzz about are generally a Gamemaster's Guide and a new Gods of Glorantha, which I think some persons have actually seen a draft of, and which I think a Table of Contents was running amok from. Apparently a Pavis & Big Rubble supplement is supposed to happen someday, maybe? And something with a Wild West feel not in Pavis, but in Barbarian Town (which is still vaguely Praxian); I don't remember if that was like scenarios, or setting, or what. Also sounds like there's buzz about a heroquesting book, but considering the community's been promised that literally longer than I've been alive, I'm currently expecting it to drop about five minutes after the heat death of the universe. /s Some notes: I am, of course, in no way associated with Chaosium. No officialness here. This is entirely based on my sketchy memory of random things read on this board over the last six months.

The big danger of Disrupt is that it ignores armor. This is quickly blocked by two points of Countermagic, a point of Shield, etc., but a round or two of Disrupt fire is a reliable way to take out heavy-duty melee warriors with a pretty low resource cost. On a related note, the effectiveness or lack thereof of certain tactics, spells, will depend on how your group grows and responds. I believe that RQ games basically end up with a group "meta" like in competitive games. Sort of a rock-paper-scissors interaction. My games mostly dealt with direct damage spells and melee attacks, so Protection was way more valuable than Countermagic. If opponents start using Befuddle, suddenly Countermagic 3 becomes really good. If every opponent uses 2MP on Befuddle instead of Bladesharp near the start of combat, players will stop casting Protection 3--in which case Bladesharp becomes good again. The way the MP and time economies interact can create a constant shift in what good magic tactics consists of. Honestly, looking back, using that combat was probably a bad example. It was this giant clusterfuck of a fight between a huge troll raid (caused because the adventurers found their hideout, and the trolls wanted to remain secretive and so destroy any who knew) on the village the adventurers were defending. The whole sides were something like: Players: Five starting adventurers (one currently MIA), 8-ish Orlanthi farmers, a one-leggged duck initiate of Humakt, a God-talker of Ernalda, and some nebulous assistance promised by a local nymph, daughter of Zola Fel (who a PC worshiped). Enemies: A troll priestess of Kyger Litor, initiate of Zorak Zoran warleader, and something like a dozen trollkin (TBH I just put down all my minis and don't remember exact numbers), with a mix of slings and spears. Then a flanking force of four Dark Troll warriors on the other end of the village. The shades, summoned by the priestess, were instructed to just fearshock and move on, targeting anything that wasn't troll, aiming for mass casualties. At one point a Herder adventurer got the village sheep to stampede through the trollkin. At another point the MIA adventurer returned with reinforcements from the enemy trolls' blood-feuding clan on the back of giant dragonflies. So no, nothing at all about this combat was built to be balanced or normal. It was an attempt by the trolls to slaughter the village so the feuding clan wouldn't find their hideaway. The shades were meant to pressure the adventurers into heroism, by knocking out a large number in a short time. Plus, let the priestess act without getting into melee. I used shades because trolls=Darkness. Elementals do honestly feel a bit like "semi-intelligent terrain" to me too. But a simple command (mess up everyone who isn't a troll) can do a lot of work, and leave the caster to do other stuff. Also, keep in mind that an uncontrolled elemental, AFAIK, can still be super useful. Elementals summoned with Rune magic come from the god, and by default won't turn around and assault the caster when uncontrolled. I play them as generally benevolent provided the caster is on good terms with their god. One of the things I did notice is that while elementals don't really have defenses, they absolutely can have enough HP to require three or four hits to kill.

To emphasize, in my experience as a player the moment someone I didn't know started casting a spell in a hostile environment, I tried to kill them. Very much an automatic reflex for that character. And a Rune Priest of Eurmal might just eat a PC!

It sounds to me like you're looking for guidelines similar to D&D and Pathfinder's Challenge Rating system. Sets of numbers which can be used to determine whether or not a combat is well measured against the party. The challenge is that, to my understanding, RQG's skill-based system is more difficult to compare in this way than D20 systems, largely because of how static HP is, and the adventurer's resistance to harming things. That being said I think advice like you're looking for is possible; but I caution you to not expect something too precise when seeking guidelines for an "appropriate encounter." My experience has been that a combat of about equivalent numbers and skills and skill combinations (melee, missile, etc) is a good feel for a dangerous encounter. When I ran a large-scale battle, the most dangerous villains were a group of six trollkin with slings (that's including two large Shades summoned by the troll Rune Priestess, which fearshocked half the Orlanthi side and two of the PCs). If your group has only one person with high POW, be extra careful how many magicians you send against them. Even two fellas in the back with POW 13/14 shooting Disrupt at the same target a couple rounds will be a huge problem for a party averaging POW 11. Disparity in the POW stat, IMO, is really important. As a player, I find my first move in combat is to ask our shaman (with POW-detecting Second Sight) where the biggest source of POW is, then to go murder it.

Iiiiiinteresting. May just have to subject my RQG group to one or both of these. My players are in the Rubble, after all, and I'm sure it'll be easier to hunt down a used paper copy of Eldarad than Pavis & Big Rubble. (Yes, I've got the PDF, but I hate running adventures off my screen since I'm usually using it for stats, ambiance, etc.)

Can't help but ask now--what's the other book?

Likewise. And we've mostly used Hallucinate for movement and utility, or recreation (the latter seems especially relevant in RQG; who wouldn't blow their last few RP to have a wild night when you get back to town?). If you're really creative, it's a fantastic spell since it lets you imagine things so wildly. Most uses I've come up with involve getting the party's Trickster into some impossible place while there's a rope attached.

Not gonna lie, it was a factor in why I brought the story up. And you know what? WE HAD FUN!

As a (relatively new) GM, I enjoy using a trickster as GMPC & Questgiver/Interference. Nothing quite like having someone ride up on an imaginary Griffon to make the players feel "something's fishy..." A friend of mine played a trickster in our ongoing RQ3+ campaign. Hallucinate lets you do some crazy stuff; he used it as the "nope!" button a lot. Reggie's general character shape was a snake oil salesman. Lying, conniving, less direct pranking and slapstickery. My highlight's more an almost-highlight. We played the Gyvreck Sodality Cult adventure from Daughters of Darkness, and ended up stealing the gem containing the god Gyvreck. Reggie didn't yet know Swallow, and to this day it remains one of the player's greatest regrets that he didn't get to Swallow a god...

Boon, prize, McGuffin--whatever, the word's not desperately important here. I just figured it was worth adding the only extant game-text use of Heroquest features to the conversation about possible features/functions . (I'm not including other references throughout the RQG Core because they seem to be "lore" references, and not actual hints at "game" elements in the way I personally parse & understand the document.)

I think it's worth noting that we have evidence of a heroquesting "prize" in RQG, in the Gamemaster's Pack adventure book. Asborn Thriceborn, on p.25 of my PDF (though I think I'm a patch or so behind) has the "Heroquest Gift" of "Can self-resurrect within 1D8 days. Requires a permanent expenditure of 4 Rune points." This is the only reference to game text on heroquests that I am aware of thus far in RQG published materials.

Chiming in with many voices... As someone who recently was new-ish to Glorantha Lore, I'd recommend the Glorantha Sourcebook most highly. It's interesting, has lots of pretty pictures, and is pretty readable. I read King of Sartar before it and found it disappointingly sparce. It does its job--mimicking Earth mythology remnants--but that job wasn't what I was hoping for. I wanted the Iliad and instead it's got myth summaries. As far as I know, there's nothing quite like the Dragonlance or Drizzt books for Glorantha. Would be great if there was. Griselda exists, as others have said. I can't speak on it myself, haven't read it (yet). I feel like playing the Quickstart with pregen characters is your best starting point. Otherwise, definitely set aside a session for character creation alone. There's tons of options to process. Even as someone experienced with other editions of RQ/BRP, and with players familiar with the premises, it took us a session to make characters.

For the time being, I've been allowing my players to choose skills like this for their "between adventures" skills, if they've been doing their profession. If you're rummaging around in libraries for a living, you're gonna get better at it. It ameliorates that downside a little bit. I still don't let them gain experience checks proper in those skills. I'd missed the bit about "an adventurer must train with an instructor for a whole season, and do little else." That doesn't make sense to me, considering RQG's focus on the integrated adventurer. I've been pitching training to my players as "you're basically doing that whenever you're not doing obligatory stuff." Sort of like, instead of working hard at your profession and cult stuff, you're doing the minimum required then going and spending time with that teacher who knows weird stuff. The other thing I think can help this is letting adventurers change professions. For example, one of my players started as a herder, but as we played we all sort of agreed that it didn't make much sense if he stayed as a herder--he's basically doing light infantry stuff. I checked his skills, and the only one which was significantly lower than I'd expect is Battle, so I figured he could start working as a peltast or scout. We don't have a formal system in place yet for professions, but I feel like some level of mutability, provided the adventurer has the relevant skills, can really help growth. Of course as they progress, this is going to be less viable--it's not like a priest can just go spend some seasons working as a heavy infantry warrior in most cults.