womble

And, for consistency's sake, don't have a local Cult with one Priest and half a Shaman, with 50 Initiates worldwide provide umpteen Special Rune Spells and have a Great Temple in every village... Unless you're prepared to tie it into Your Glorantha's Mythscape as completely and broadly as Orlanth or the Seven Mothers are... Context, context, context...

Just because your method of interacting with magic is Sorcery doesn't make all the small spirits go away. The Westerners just use different tools to deal with them. They might also use different terms of reference, but they'll translate into the same entities in game terms.

Once she's off into the Underworld, wouldn't most 'timings' be notional, that is, since she's "heroquesting", she could end up returning to the Inner World fully grown at any time, having experienced centuries from her point of view.

Thanks Crel. I thought it was probably erroneous, but the use of unenchanted iron was so consistent, I had to wonder.

Since the Tribal Edit thread is closed, there are a couple of things I've noticed that don't sit square with either other material, or how I think the world has been portrayed. First, the Black Spear Wyter. Its description says "...The wyter is worshiped as part of the tribal Orlanth Rex ceremonies, which replenishes its Rune points." And yet the core rules and Bestiary (which I think are copy-pasta) state "...can cast any Rune spell...known by its priest...A wyter spends points of its characteristic POW instead of Rune points when casting Rune spells" I'd guess that the Adventure Book is mistaken, since it doesn't make any big thing of this wyter having a particular special ability to manifest Rune Points when other wyters can't. Second: the iron armour of the Rune Masters of the Colymar clan. I've only got as far as Leika and Asborn, and yet they've both got a full 10-ENC panoply of unenchanted Iron crippling their chances of casting their (considerable) magic. And yet Orlanth Priests can all learn Enchant Iron, and it takes just one POW to enchant 10 ENC. What gives? My perception* is that Rune Masters (especially famous ones of big old cults like these two) get their Enchanted Iron panoply supplied by the Cult. And even if the Cult only has the iron, surely it's better to be able to cast than not. Or is it the game design intention that elite individuals prefer the defensive dampening effect of unenchanted iron? * Page 281 Core says Edit: And now the Babeester Gor and the Humakti are at it: Erannin Chan. She even knows Enchant Iron, and hasn't sealed her armour, so she's basically unable to cast. And Nameless the Humakti Rune Lord is again sporting a ton of Iron with no Enchantment. I'm starting to think this is an intentional deviation from previous material. But why learn Enchant Iron and then not use it?

I'd caution restraint, possibly great restraint on combining two relatively punchy Gods like that into what 'ought' (to retain consistency with the rest of the setting) be a relatively minor Cult. One theme in the design of Cults is that bigger, more important Cults tend to have more selections of Rune Magic, and more chances of getting good opportunities to get Rune Points back. 'Specialist' Cults tend to have a narrower menu of Special magics (hence their label as specialist), and fewer temples and other support structures, especially outside their home territory. Naturally, it's your Glorantha, so go as crazy as you like, but bear in mind that changes in Divine ecosystems can have far-reaching effects (which could set up very interesting scenarios, or leave the players scratching their heads wondering why this tiny little subcult doesn't have greater penetration into History...)

Maybe they decamped en masse to the GodTime/Hero Plane and became the nightmares known as Demons. Or even the very Gods themselves, shaped by the myths they were trying to shape, as much as they did any shaping themselves. 'S a bit recursive, perhaps.

Multiple Initiations brings its own problems. Beyond the initial compatibility, you have commitments (of time and treasure) to both/all your Cults, which can be tricky to manage. The requirement for the Cults to be friendly probably usually means they won't each set you antagonistic goals, but doesn't mean they won't sometimes end up working at cross-purposes or having aims that simply can't both be pursued at once. For me, that's always been the downside of multiple Initiations, and I've only seen it 'frowned upon' when people do it "Will-ye, nill-ye".

I don't believe that is intended to prevent them ever forming new attachments. I think that, at the moment/in the process of Initiation to Humakt, other ties are cut, sure, so the Initiate starts with a 'clean slate'.

The bit in Game Systems distinctly mentions pollution as attracting Disease Spirits. The reason excrement is excreted is to get rid of the pollution it contains. There's no such thing as 'healthy' excrements. There may be excrement from healthy bodies, but the excrement itself is polluted and creates pollution. If it gets into your water supply, it'll draw disease spirits.

Given the prevalence of Ernalda Initiates in Orlanthi culture, I don't think it'd be much more than a small favour needed to get a kinswoman to cast Reproduce. Only a bit of praying... maybe the equivalent of "10 Hail Mary's and a good act of contrition", just for form's sake. And even then, only if their Death Rune was significantly higher than their Fertility Rune.

There is a potential discrepancy in how diseases are meant to work: The Game System chapter does, indeed state that diseases are not caused by the pathogens we recognise, but by disease spirits. However, the Alchemy rules for medicines say "...If a disease has been caused by a disease spirit..." (my emphasis) implying that there are other mechanisms. The error is probably with the Alchemy rules.

Given the Kudos attached to motherhood, I can see some cultures widely viewing contraception as anathema. That's not to say you have to go the the Ernalda Priestess for a Reproduce casting as soon as you can walk after your last parturition, but someone with a high/dominant Fertility rune would probably not even really consider contraception as much of an option, I feel.

Note also that reputation "Within the same Clan" gets a 25 bonus, so you get to 'worth using as an Augment, maybe' quicker when you're dealing with your kin.

IMG, they'll add to the stat and improve the bonuses exactly as if they had naturally added. A lot of the time that'll be the same as the default change in the spell description (which I consider a shortcut/generalisation to avoid having to do sums that might be unnecessary)... Sometimes it won't, and that matters to me.

I'd count each +6 (or part thereof) as a die for the purposes of counting how many dice were rolled. And I believe that "min plus max rollable" is an overgeneralisation that works for pure dice, but not for stats that use adds. Species maximum for INT and SIZ (for humans) that can't normally be increased by training/experience is still relevant (as is the general principle, for non-human characters that have improvable stats which include adds as well as dice); Bless Pregnancy lets you add points to any stat for the progeny of the Blessed pregnancy, but only up to the racial maximum. Personally, I'd be inclined to require the caster to specify what stats the stack points are going to be assigned to before they roll (so there's a fair chance of wastage if there's a lot of Rune Points behind it). There may be other occasions where the stats can be improved, but only up to racial max.

So when do you have separate Rune Pools? It ar nao confuzzd.

Just a slight amend to that... p416 says if you roll 100 on your gain roll, it always goes up whether the actual total is 'over' 99 or not. Personally, I'm of a mind to have skill and bonus be separate for experience purposes; this will result in faster improvement for those with skill bonuses because in the above example they'd only have to roll over 50 to increase, and the skill total will be further over 100 before you start running into 'gotta roll 100' to improve. And the flipside will mean negative modifiers make improving skills harder and getting past [100-plus-negativeskillbonus] is going to be rare. I do have to rein my generosity in sometimes, as GM, but I don't think this will be particularly gamechanging.

Aye, separate Rune pools are for Associated Cults. Or Cults that you've somehow finagled being Initiated into without them being Associated with your other Cult(s). I think.

Since your pyro would also be a 'scribe', they could be an Initiate of Lankhor Mhy (Lightbringer God of Knowledge), with the "Philosopher" Occupation. Lankhor Mhy has a prescribed set of Sorcery abilities (Truth, Command and 3 spells from a short but useful list) that the Cult teaches, but the Occupation gives you another 'same again' of Runes, Techniques and spells. I'm no Sorcery expert but add Fire as your Philosopher Rune and Summon as your Technique, and you could take Conflagration, Create Wall of Flames and Summon (Salamander) as your three spells from your background and you're pretty 'flame on'!

Highest Orlanth Rune scores, either just Air, or Air and Motion totalled. A baseline representation of being a 'good Orlanthi'. Maybe add Reputation into the mix... Average of the three, maybe?

I'd rather say that each 'doubling' is actually "+100% of the original damage", so the second applicable doubling would make triple damage, and so on. This would apply at each stage, so effects that increase raw damage done would apply together (3 doublings would be x4, not x8), but if there was a 'double damage that gets past armour', that would apply separately and be an actual doubling. If there were more than one 'double penetrating damage' effects, each would be '+100% of penetrating damage'.

I'm pretty sure the magic suppression effect only applies to iron. Otherwise gold and silver jewelry would be magically inhibiting, and you would be struggling to cast Speedart on your lead slingshot. Copper is also used as adornment in some cases. While slaves have no access to 'official' temples, if they are not closely supervised, any Initiate can set up a Sanctified space for worship. Slave-holding cultures where the slaves are part of the population (rather than closely confined like galley crew or mine workers or on a latifunda) would have opportunity for such a space to be created. And even if the slave initially had no Rune Points available, they might have a votive object 'back home' to grant them seasonal points.

I think the danger lies more in the smaller size of such gatherings than the location. Your random interloping spirit isn't going to pose a threat to a full Clan ceremony. Of course, in an oppressed situation, the risk of travelling to where large numbers gather rises with the size of the gathering. In reading the scenario material set in Sartar, I didn't get the impression that the suppression of worship of Orlanth meant the actual ceremonies were inherently more dangerous, neither because of size nor location at non-prime sites.

I'd estimate Jar-Eel to be a power grade higher than Kallyr (superhero rather than hero), and that's probably about right for the 'serious'ness of her mojo. If you're hitting 'early', the participants won't have sacrificed all their Magic Points yet (if, indeed, they're sacrificing more than the mandatory). Yes, you could but there will be risks and costs that generally aren't worth soaking. Your local Lunar garrison commander does not have enough resources to try and rain on the Orlanthi parade while they're actually getting their God on. So they, as you note, go after them all the rest of the time at much less risk and cost. Though it does make interdicting known worship sites somewhat pointless if the oppressed can just go somewhere random and set up a sacred space for the cost of maybe 4MP per participant... Makes Temples less significant in successful worship of a God. Since Sanctify is a Common spell, every Initiate can find a place to pray to their Gods on the Holy days if they've even one RP left. Granted, That level of worship (individual Initiates worshipping solo) is much more amenable to a good door-kicking: you don't have to grab them all up at once, so a garrison's Vexillary spirit should be up to providing enough oomph to bring down that level of ceremony. You just have to find 'em.