womble

1) they aren't necessarily sucker punches. 2) bare knuckle fighters don't necessarily go down if punched clean 3x in the head for 'lightest significant contact' (i.e. rolling minimum damage), and I guarantee you they'll all have d4 damage bonus at least. Heavyweight boxers are doing d3+d6, which, while it might knock an ordinary person out, pretty much guaranteed, with a clean hit, they'd have to be very unlucky to be dead within 5 minutes, absent the risk of additional head-kerb interactions, and extremely unlucky to be dead within thirty seconds. 3) if hand to hand parries did as much damage to arms as armed ones do, boxing matches would never go 12 rounds. The rules are a very poor simulation of unarmed combat, because they're not designed for it. All the lipstick in the world...

Ah! Thank you! Of course what you can do with a bound spirit is only written once, and nowhere near the place where it describes how to create bindings... Edit: The language used there, though, reminds me of a lack of clarity I noticed a while back, but pushed to the back of my mind: who is "the binder"? And does the p366 reference mean that only they can use the spirit magic and magic points of the spirit, while anyone else would be limited to controlling the spirit and releasing it to do its thang? The terms of reference seem to wobble about a bit in the Magic Chapter, and the section about Crystals in the GM Screen Pack.

I'm pretty sure an Odayalan isn't compelled to have an Alynx companion, in the same way that Alynx are not compelled to become an Odayala hunter's sidekick. Yinkini would have Alynx hunting cats more often, and I'm not sure even they all do. So you could happily play an Odayalan hunter with a Wolf Brother, and I don't think there's any inherent conflict between the Cults that would mean they'd automatically be enemies. You'd have to find a Hunter who could see past cultural prejudices, though, if they had any against Telmori, because the two cults are certainly not Associated (with the general level of mutual acceptance that implies). In the end, though, the PCs in the game are generally going to be the exceptions, so, as long as the player is prepared to deal with consequences that might come up in social environments that differ from the one where they got dual-Initiated, it's all grist for the MGF mill

I disagree, generally. You don't need to be a 'Master Sorceror' to lay that kind of mojo on someone, just have a big enough Inscription (it's why sorcerors are all old and wizened), and a platoon or company full of troopers willing to fill up your MP stores (or a Tap source). And with year-duration 'buffs', everyone gets a go, it's not just 'select individuals' you can snipe (with those Rune-suppressed Thunderbolts/Lightning that you don't get to use successfully very often). This is the sort of thing an organised society can arrange. Orlanth doesn't have any extrinsic offensive spells that are not Air. Neutralise Air on folk, and you've gotten rid of the threat of a couple of high CHA Thunderous Initiates just nuking a dozen targets each with Thunderbolt, and you're down to push of pike, which you'll win, because your supergenerals will be baiting the Theists into wasting their spells, and yours just go on and on.

The way I see the RQG vintage, you don't have to go to 'the' or even 'a' Priestess. At least one of your grandmother, mother, sisters, aunts, cousins, friends or neighbours will be an Initiate of Ernalda with Bless Pregnancy. Such women will be frequent enough in the population, with the weekly worship opportunities of Clayday Ernalda services that having enough Bless Pregnancy-capable Rune Points in the community to cover the new pregnancies each week won't be a problem, at least at a basic level. Sure, not everyone will get the full services of the 'favourite midwife of the Tula' (mature woman, so a CHA full of Rune Points, high CHA, hence popular); her services will be generally guided to the most significant, but someone the expectant mother knows will have access to the spell, the Rune Point spare and the willingness to cast it, if they're a participant in general Sartarite society, and not some kind of outcast/isolate. Edit: "only so much magic to share each season": Every week d6 for every Initiate with the spell; d6+1 for Runemasters. At least once a season, 2d6 for the Initiates, full refill for the Runemasters. Twice a year full refill for everyone. Average increase of 1 POW per year across the board. Your average 30 year old midwife could handle 140 pregnancies a year and still have her full CHA 3 or 4 times over for handling surges or doing other things. And, the way I see it, nearly every 30 year old will be a potential midwife. Even if it's only 10% get 'Initiated with a capital I', that's plenty.

Sounds about right. Except I'm not sure about being able to use all the Spirit's spells when they're bound. The Magic Chapter discussion of Binding just says you can communicate with the beastie and give it orders. It's spirits trapped in Spirit Binding Crystals (GM Screen Pack, Appendix 2) which the rules specifically state you're allowed to access the MP, but do not mention access to spells. Allied Spirits let you share spell knowledge, and Bloody Tusk Rune Magic can create talismans that let you use the bound spirit's spell knowledge as well as its MPs. I have assumed that bound spirits were like (I remember) RQ3 and let you access their MPs, but not their CHA to 'remember' Spirit Magic for you, for the purposes of my Glorantha. 1. Nope. You did the hard part already. The POW v POW is specified in Command Cult Spirit. 2. Good question. I'm not sure what function Spirit Binding serves. I'm thinking you need it to force your 0 MP vanquished spirit into its new home... I can't see it as being as easy as "See Spirit, cast 1MP, beat it in POW v POW, get new bound spirit". 3. I say, for the purposes of my Glorantha, that Control Spirit on a Bound spirit works automatically without having to reduce it to 0MP. Otherwise spirits bound by Shamanic cultures without access to Dominate, or non-Cult Spirits bound in Theist cultures would be one-use. Maybe that's the intent, but I don't like it if so. Command Cult Spirit, as has been said, only works on Spirits of your Cult. So Elementals, mostly, for Orlanth, for example. Cults do have other spirits (the already-mentioned Spirits of Reprisal for one), and I reckon their MP would be available to the holder of the Binding. As a result, I think the Orlanthi wouldn't be reduced to kidnapping Spirits of Reprisal very often; they can whistle up an Elemental and Command that, instead, if they've got an empty Binding to fill. I like this discussion: the rules on Binding while lengthy, aren't very clear, and are almost-but-not-quite-the-same as older versions, so hashing out the questions is good.

One of the useful things about Lhankor Mhy training is it gives you Command. Given the general Cosmological background, I can see there being a lot of ethic-system-based objection to people just making quantities of 'world stuff' (including people, permanently) vanish for their own empowerment. The Theist and Shamanic communities revolve around 'bargains' and exchanges of power, and keeping what-exists around to do useful stuff, rather than blatant annihilation... It also shifts the bottleneck back to Free INT.

Would it be reasonable to change the 'shady' underside of the thigh so the textile pattern doesn't 'blend' it into the saddlecloth background? Make the pattern just a narrow band down the outside of the leg, kind of thing? That increased contrast level might help the leg stand out on smaller renditions.

I think part of the problem people are having with the leg is that the pattern on the trews makes it look a lot spindlier than it is.At this zoom level, it's more apparent that there's a hamstring.

For me, the Devotion(Deity) outcomes aren't 'rewards' necessarily from the Deity, but affirmation of the character in their Devotion to the Deity they already follow or are close to. I don't have enough knowledge of Telmori cosmology to say who that would naturally be, but my shaky grasp suggests Hykim/Mikyh or even Telmor, if that's a Cult. There's 'history' to say Orlanthi don't have to be hostile to Werewolves; the Telmori have provided Sartar Royal Guard for generations, after all. But Odayala is Yinkin's nephew; your character would have had to have done something right special to get in his good graces. I guess Pennel Ford did have the whole Harrek going Mondo on everyone thing, and there are, IIRC, suggestions that the White Bear and Odayala have Miffic Links.

The way I see the RQG vintage of Glorantha, a Sartarite mother would have to be isolated to an extreme extent to be unable to access the services of someone with Bless Pregnancy. Now I'm sure it happens sometimes, and maybe there's some Gloranthan Cosmic Balance that means every shackled-to-the-sink backwoods wife who can't get to see a midwife in the first ummm pentamester, has to have a deformed child to make up for the fact that 99.99% of births are Blessed. Those kids are gonna have to be some mean banjo-players to find a place in Orlanthi Society.

Also, if you're using Control Spirit on a freshly Summoned Entity, you have to defeat (i.e. reduce to zero MP) the Spirit before you can tell it to do anything, after which it's not really much use. If, indeed, you want to be starting an additional Spirit Combat in a given tactical situation. The way I read it, you need to use a Control Spirit (or Command Cult Spirit if appropriate or Dominate Spirit) to poke the Spirit out of its Binding (and it automatically works, rather than requiring Spirit Combat/POW v POW/SpellStrength v POW as relevant contest), then you've got the duration of the spell to order it about, finally sending it back into its box. I am currently of the opinion that this is the only real practical way to get any use out of Spirits reliably. Even the one-roll contests for Command Cult Spirit are a bit risky to be trying to pull off at the point you need to use the spirit: you may well waste both the resources spent to summon the entity as well as those spent on the attempt to control it, which isn't something you necessarily want to risk in an operational situation: do it in 'downtime' when you've got a chance for retrys. Also, given the casting time for Sorcery spells, I think the Meldeks have to get creative to be able to hit their freshly-summoned future servants with Dominates fast enough (before the Spirit just skedaddles). Protective Circle maybe? Certainly not going to be an option at the 'point of application' of a Spirit very often.

Yeah, those are pretty limited rules. You can only hit the head, for one, and unconsciousness or 1HP is the only outcome. I suppose it's possible to extrapolate to allow other locations to be targetted for 'disabling', but frankly if you want to win, you just do the damage, rather than missing aimed shots, a lot. You can probably avoid killing someone outright with bare hands... unless you've got a D6 damage bonus, then you're cruising for a weregeld... average damage probably won't kill outright, but a high roll on a Special/Crit (same thing if they're not wearing armour - punches are crushing damage right? so roll DB twice?) could certainly off a pencil-neck (unless fists don't get Crush Special results).

Ah. There was bound to be one in there... But again, we're into "Sorcerors have to have [thing] to be any good" territory. In this case the Drain Soul spell (which means they need to start with Dispel or Summon as their "Philosopher" technique. Which while they aren't shabby, gets as cookie-cutter as having to have Fire (or Water or Earth) for Enhance INT... At least it's usable as a Strength 1, Range 1 spell, in order to get a POW gain tick... and pretty impressive at higher Strengths, if you can get it launched in time.

One thing that does bother me about Sorcerors: they need all the POW they can get for their Inscriptions and MP stores, but they don't really have any way of getting more POW per year than their two rolls for Sacred Time and High Holy Day, without some POWvPOW Spirit Magic. All their spells seem to compare Strength vs... or Intensity vs... The only activity they get POW gain rolls for is Spirit Combat. Or 500L for a training session. That's more of a crimp to their style than lack of Fire Rune, and makes 'native' Free INT even more important: if that's pretty much all they'll ever have, how can they ever hope to amount to anything?

I don't think having units of foot armed with +3d6 Boon of Kargan Tor'ed weapons, strength 20 Ward Against Weapons and a couple of Neutralised Runes led by captains with 300-odd Battle and instant voice comms with their General is 'dilatory'. And that's entirely doable for an organised army from an organised society. Some of the Sorcerors who made those 'buffs' would even be marching in the ranks. And in a battle situation, the casting time for big Sorcery spells isn't quite such a problem as it is in a dozen-body skirmish which'll be done by the time the spell is cast. Those big-Intensity Fingers of Fire fuelled by platoons'-worth of MP Enchantments will sting, even if they're cast at double cost by a magus with the Earth Rune mastered. It's also far from the only thing they could do. We don't have anything like 'all' the spells for Sorcery yet (and probably never will, since you can make what you like, within reason..) There's a thread of additional Sorcery spells and that's got Flying in it... We also don't have much info about how the Divine interacts and synergises with the Sorcerous, in places where Sorcery is part-and-parcel of worship and the two go, and work, hand-in-hand. Maybe there are ways of storing Sorceries in a Vancian manner, or just in some kind of glyph or Enchantment so they can be used with snap-timing: how much more efficient is it to heal yourself with MP you wouldn't have used for anything otherwise than to have to use the ones sitting in your aura now? Even if those MP only heal at 25% of the effect per point cast compared to Heal Wound or Heal?

You don't have to learn the Fire Rune to cast Enhance INT. You can do it with Earth or Water; you just have to have a bigger pot of MP to sup from. And I'll say again, I don't think it really does 'significantly' enhance your ability. It's "nice to have" rather than "essential". It's a toss-up whether the POW you put into the Inscription for it (and therefore, effectively, into all your spells at lesser effect) is more efficient than feeding the Inscriptions for specific spells. If you're a specialist, it's 'more efficient' just to push more POW into one or two burgeoning Inscriptions. You've possibly also got the cost of learning a different Elemental Rune you didn't want to (if you're a Dark or Air specialist), and the restrictions on how many Runes and Techniques you can learn make that an opportunity cost which is more difficult to judge. In the end, a Sorceror can achieve just as much for the same POW investment without Enhance INT as with, unless they're very generalist. And once they start sorting their MP supply issues, Water and Earth Sorcerors (or those who've one of those Runes as a sideline) can use it just as well as Fire. Consider: there are plenty of Dispel-rather-than-Summon casters, and that doesn't crimp their style either.

Heh. He obviously didn't have Logician, or grok that it could be used with Battle. Or maybe he just got precisely the effects he wanted out of his field encounters... Them rituals have structure donchaknow? It's hard to get that sort of glyph drawn in dead bodies on a battlefield...

Note, though, that 'some vanilla farmers' are likely to get mulched in Apple Lane 1625. The base level of characters is higher than most tabletop RPGs are used to, as they come out of the book via Character Generation. It's certainly higher powered than starting characters in your previous RQ-carnations. "Some vanilla farmers" would be lacking the personal development bonuses of the system as presented in the book, as I read it (putting their best skills 25 points below where the material expects them to be). The default RQG system produces characters that are already ready for Pavis. Maybe not the depths of the Big Rubble, but they can certainly scurry round the New Town and the easier bits of the Rubble. They've been in, potentially, several major battles and hung around with Demigods-to-be a bit by the time you get to have a chew on them as the GM. I say: go for the standard starting level and have them be in Sartar. Maybe restrict Homelands a bit so you don't have to explain too many world-views to the players to start with, and they have some ties to draw them into Sartar and its background. But Dragon Pass is where the action is going to be at, in the Hero Wars: give your players front row seats (right next to the mosh pit)! Also, from personal experience, make sure your players have a really good reason and motivation for getting double-Initiated in chargen. One of mine who doubled did, and the other didn't really, and now it seems all a bit hinky. And I have to manage and explain yet another God... And make sure you leave lots of game-contract wiggle-room for players to go back and redo, from start, if necessary. Glorantha is a funny old beast and first impressions aren't always borne out in game, so if someone turns out to hate what they intially set up, let 'em noodle it about, or even completely change it.

I know from experience that the overarm thrust with the spear in foot combat is basically futile. I'd expect horsemen to be using underarm thrusts at least as much as overarm. But that's different from the couched lance of the stereotypical charging lancer. The Kontos (Xyston) was, I gather, used two-handed. Seems like an inherently unstable fighting approach even with horned saddles, but Alexander's cavalry dominated many battlefields, so there must've been something to it...

I just ginned up one of these using Phil Hibbs excellent character generation spreadsheet https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/7647-rqg-character-creation-spreadsheet/ He's got ho-hum stats, but looks pretty useful as a starting character, and that's with going as 'sword sage' as I could (mostly because he doesn't need to be good at Lores, due to Logician being, as Scott says 'crazy good'). You need to be using a chargen system that lets you get INT 18 (or better) and probably have Fire as your best Rune, natch. At least ENC doesn't penalise your casting chance 1-for-1 like it did in RQ3 (where ENC values were also higher, at least for armour). He can put out a decent Ward Against Weapons, and his Boon of Kargan Tor is limited by MP. He can pop anti-Befuddles all day. Can't cast Enhance INT yet (no Fire Rune) but can build his own MP stores to work past that bottleneck. And he's an Alchemist (for whatever that turns out to be worth... I'm thinking POW restore potions). Given the amount of Downtime assumed in the base setting, he could be extremely potent in a couple of years. Take Logician. Apply it to Battle... Win all skirmishes (or bigger). Ever. SuperGeneral! All opposition fall for your subtle stratagems. All Generals should be Sorcerors with this spell. 'S probably what made Tatius so good (until Dragon, obv). Yes, he's got lots of choices about where to spend his POW gains (I'm sure there will be a page or two about how POW increases are the key to pacing character development in the GM's Guide): he needs to swap a MP Enchant for a Matrix of Matrix Creation Enchant so he can have some 'primitive' Spirit Magic for pinch situations, and he can Inscribe or sac for Rune Points, or build bigger MP stores, or learn more Runes or techniques, but looking from a player's point of view, I think those are choices: they're all good; I just have to decide which one I need 'next'. And they might not all always be available, so having choices is good. What stands out to me as a bit odd, though, is that I really don't give two hoots about the size of his Magic Skill Category Bonus. All the other factors are just so much more significant. Also, his 'tactical' Sorcery options are constrained by MP supply, not Free INT. So a few points of Spirit Magic wouldn't actually crimp his style in a mosh. Then all he needs is that Matrix Creation Matrix. And he's got currency to buy them with: everybody needs MP stores, and it's soulforce for soulforce.

Given that Bless Pregnancy lets you choose the sex of the baby, would it let you choose handedness. Anywhere there's Ernalda/Esrola/Eritha worship, it would be a very ostracised mother indeed who gave birth to a deformed child, I think. Historical attitudes to birth deformities ranged up from infanticide to exposure to the elements, and any deformities that impaired too badly were generally lethal anyway. I'd imagine in places where there isn't a mother Goddess looking out for gravid women and their progeny, similar attitudes would prevail. Obviously any unusual births where the mother has had the help of the Goddesses would be considered either especially holy or especially heinous...

In my noodling about with a Sorcerer NPC, Enhance INT isn't too much of an issue. Since it takes 4 additional points of Intensity to add a point of Free INT, and you'll have to recharge all the MP batteries you emptied casting it before you can use it, so can't really cast it at short duration for higher Intensity (unless you've got mondo MP reserves, at which point the power level is raised, so a bit more Free INT isn't unacceptable), I don't think it shoves balance over to the Sorceror too far.

RQG p275: Membership in Multiple Cults.

Or cast Ward Against Weapons at sufficiently high level that there's no way a lab animal could hurt you...