womble

Oh, good catch. I had missed that you have to spend a one-use RP to even get a roll.

Thinking about this on some long drives, I was wondering whether an additional subcult might in some cases require additional tithing. You might consider that tithes are paid to a (specific) temple rather than to a Cult in general, so if you're Initiated at Larnste's Table to Adventurous, and you have to go to Leika as Tribal High Priest of the Wind Voices of the Starfire Ridges to get tested for Thunderous, they might both be wanting their cut of your income and time. Maybe it depends on your Loyalty (Temple) Passion(s)...

Gloranthans have stirrups if Gloranthans in Your Glorantha (or your GM's Glorantha) have stirrups, I suspect. Most of the art I've seen recently suggests that stirrups are not universally employed...

2 hours ago, styopa said:

I'd toyed with the idea of impaling weapons being capped at (location hp+1) for max damage, as obviously once something has gone through a location, going "more through it" doesn't really do any more harm.  Thus their intrinsically higher impale/crit multipliers help them get to this cap faster, but then that's about all they do.

Apart from the fact that impaling weapons can extend their wound track by slicing through tissue with their edges. Harder to do if puncturing through protection, but a crit that has avoided armour could be much more devastating.

Yeah, the POW loss for everyone (if a Rune Master with Improved DI rolls over their current unused Rune Point total) is permanent. Which is also how Priests who are meant to maintain an impressive-to-the-God-and-their-Congregation 18 POW get sent on furlough sometimes.

1 hour ago, RHW said:

*Not to be confused with Cowfart-Down-Stream where people are much more sophisticated. Meaning they spit less.

I'd've thought they'd spit more, living downstream from "Other Cowfart"...

As a POW v POW thing, it would be the exact Spirit Magic Equivalent of the Rune Magic Command [Cult Spirit|Species] spells. Makes me think the POW v POW struggle was just omitted. But you could be right. Needs clarification for standardisation purposes.

Control ([spirit type]) is useful on Bound spirits still within their Binding Enchantment hutch. It automatically works

Quote

 

p250

Control spells automatically work against creatures while they are bound in items...

 

(without having to drop the spirit to 0 MP), for the cost of 1MP and you get 2 minutes of commands, the last of which, before the spell expires, should be 'get back in your hutch' if you want to retain the spirit's 'bound' status. This is better than the single command (followed by freedom if you don't cast some sort of controlling spell, along with the associated chance of failure inside the time it takes for the spirit to complete the assigned task) you get if you simply release a bound spirit from its holding Enchantment. 

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

Spirit Binding assumes that you have some form of control over the spirit, be it from some other form or magic or the control exerted by your fetch, or a Control (Entity) spell. Just waving an empty spirit binding enchantment at a spirit won't do a thing.

I think you're confusing the Binding Enchantment... Spirit Magic enchantment with the Spirit Magic spell Spirit Binding which actually seems to read like you just cast it on any Spirit you can see and the target is forced, with no chance of resistance, into an available and "large enough for the spirit's number of characteristics" Binding Enchantment of your choosing. 

Quote

 

Spirit Binding

1 Point

Ranged, Permanent, Passive

This spell is used to bind spirits into familiars or magical objects:

 

The rest of the description discusses what it is used for and how the binding ends, not the mechanics of its use.

I'd make the caster defeat the Spirit in a POW v POW roll, m'self.

Reading his entry, that looks like a 'membership benefit' for a certain level of acceptance into the "Died but got better club"... As in: "Succeed on your DI for resurrection n times [looks like twice for Asborn], and get the ability to roll a '4' any time you try..." Makes perfect sense as a Heroquest reward too, though.

Do you mean the indistinct blob at the junction of the Old Man/Black Spear-Clearwine road and the Quackford road? Or the dot at the edge of the 'hatched' (lowland?) area? If the former, it's illustrated better on the map in The Broken Tower adventure in the Quickstart product.

Hope that's not TMI for anyone...

5 hours ago, Darius West said:

Well, that's pretty sexist, considering that Orlanth is a male deity and has no particular reason to allow females to join.  I mean, that essentially grants women who join Orlanth access to one more spell than males get, and when you get down to it, Vinga is just a thunder brother cult.  I mean, to be fair, Fearless is a pretty bad spell, but there is a principle at stake. There are no other thunder brother cults with listed spells that are "male only", so what's up with that?

How does that work considering that nobody has even written up Ulanin for RQ:RiG, and the rest of the Thunder Brothers are thin on the ground too?  Hero Quest is a silly system by comparison.  "Oh my... can I dream up a reason why this keyword is relevant to this situation?  I know, I'll invent a spurious myth that nobody has ever heard of that makes my keyword relevant, provided it doesn't involve missile combat, because we can't even begin to describe it within the limited scope of the HQ rules system."

Note that there are ways for men to become Ernalda Priestesses. 

It really doesn't matter whether you're better than the other guy. You can always make a reckless lunge. The penalty should apply to parries made with the same weapon too, and maybe even to parries made with other weapons/shields. And definitely dodge. You're throwing your stance out the window to get a fast, possibly surprise (in the very immediate 'conversation of the blades' sense) hit in before something else drastic happens. Without your posture, it becomes hard to execute footwork and the parrying part of your weapon combo is probably out of position.

Sure, it should be and I think is, doubly risky against a better opponent, but anyone should be allowed to chance it, if you're introducing the option.

Pike doing more damage than a 2-handed spear is a nonsense anyway. As is the notion of the duellist pikeman.

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

All you can get the spear to do is release the salamander.

I'm not even sure you can do that. The Binding Enchantment's only target is the spirit bound within it, and any Target Conditions have to apply to that entity, not the Enchantment. It doesn't care and can't know that it's stuck in someone. A Target Condition for a Binding Enchantment would be something like "only Cult spirits from Cults who are enemies of Orlanth" or "Only Dehori". I don't think "not on spirits housed in a spear head that's currently stuck in someone's meaty parts" is a valid condition.

53 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

Thank you, but if this project continues - will have to redraw at least twenty of the sketches: whilst I'm very far from equaling any professional artists, I am slowly getting better at drawing, and some of the older sketches are looking naff.

Just one more to do before I assess where this project is going. There's unlikely to be much of a market for a 360 page book about warfare in central Glorantha.

There wasn't much market for a massive two volume tome of Gloranthan history, you'd've thought...

I'll definitely put this on my Xmas list to add to the Guide that Santa brought me last year.

14 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Well, the Aldrya subcults all have the same plus some bonus ones at the later stages, but I assume you don't lose the RP or rune spells that you got from the previous subcult. I don't know if Aldrya is unusual in that you have to leave the old subcult to join the new. Probably you have to leave Orlanth Adventurous when you become chief and join Rex, but I'm sure you keep the Lightning and all the RP.

I concur that it would be an egregious disincentive to an Adventurous Wind Lord or a Thunderous Voice with a snoot full of Rune Points against becoming a Chieftain if they lost their spells and already-sacced RPs. I agree that they probably don't. The question is whether they can still sacrifice for the Adventurous/Thunderous spells that they hadn't already acquired, once they join Rex (or any other subcult, like Ulanin).

The examples on p282-283 aren't definitive, but the wording in Vasana's joining test example "...she would like to join the Thunderous subcult, extending her worship of Orlanth..." [my emphasis] is suggestive that it's an addition, not a replacement, but could be read either way. For an established Initiate of a God, switching between the subcults would be purely a matter of pestering the admitting Priests repeatedly and in turn, until they got tired of your vaccilation...

I suppose in a lot of ways joining a given subcult is about availability. If you're a member of a Clan with history of worshipping a given Hero, you'll be able to find a Priest to give you the test for entry with little effort, and they won't set hard tests. If you're a stranger to that Clan, you might find it more difficult. For Orlanth, it's just that Rex, Thunderous, Vinga and Adventurous are commonplace in the core book's Homelands. It would suck though if having joined Ulanin, you had to 'go back' to Adventurous, just because you hadn't learned Shield yet.

1 hour ago, PhilHibbs said:

Another data point is the Aldrya cult, where the natural progression is by leaving one subcult and joining another.

Aye, 'leaving' might mean you're 'not in the original one' any more, and don't get to sac for its Special Rune Magic... I guess it will depend on the Cult.

1 hour ago, M Helsdon said:

It's likely that in all cults, members can use whatever weapons they like - unless they are expressly forbidden.

"Everything that is not forbidden... is permitted"

I'm sure that's a quote from somewhere.

2 hours ago, metcalph said:

If and only if the Thanatari couldn't use his own rune points to power the rune spells of his head.

Aye. If the head provides the knowledge of how to use the Rune Point, and the RP is the fuel, that'd be so. I'm not sure it's quite that simple, though. If a living person is a member of two Associated Cults, they have separate Rune Point Pools and can't use the points from one to fuel spells from the other, nor can they stack points from both Cults into the same casting of a Common Rune Magic that both Cults provide access to.

If a fully-integrated living spirit can't use Associated Cult Rune Points to cast Special Rune Magic, then it seems to be a stretch that a magical Chimera could use enemy Cult Rune Points to do so.

4 hours ago, Darius West said:

So here's a few questions...

1) When you join a subcult, do you have to pay extra tithes for the privilege?  That could get frantically expensive.

2) Should we consider the Thunder Brothers to be subcults of Orlanth or cults unto themselves?

3) Is there any reason why men can't venerate Vinga and get the "Fearless" spell?

1) I don't think so.

2) Subcults, I reckon.

3) Yes, there is a reason. They are men. They don't qualify, any more than an Ernaldan who hasn't given birth to a healthy bairn can become a full priestess.

Thanks for the pointer, CB. You're right: it is covered there. A Hero Cult is just another Subcult and you can be a member of as many subcults as you can pass the 'test' for.

However, I find myself disappointed after reading the relevant snippet. Effectively, Subcults are largely meaningless restrictions. Since the POW point for joining gets you a Rune Spell as well as a Rune Point, if your Adventurous adventurer fancies adding Thunderbolt instead of Lightning, they can 'just' join Thunderous to access it. Strictly, they could even take Rune Spells provided by Associated Cults (Bear's Strength, say) which are 'only' available to the new Subcult.

It also means in Cults like Orlanth where Priest and Lord derive from different Subcults, that the initial 'decision' on which of the two default subcults to join is not very momentous, since you can just add the other.

The recent thread about an Ulanin Subcult for Orlanth triggered some wondering about other Orlanthi subcults and how they work together within the overall Religion of Sartar. I suspect some of the wonderings might apply to other pantheons also.

So we know that (by default) an Orlanth Initiate chooses one of Adventurous (or Vinga) or Thunderous when they become Initiated by devoting one point of personal POW. They then gain the 'right' to access all the 'general' Orlanth Special Rune Spells ("all subcults") and the ones offered by the specific subcult they join. We also know that when a Sartarite becomes an Orlanthi Chieftain, they also become Initiated into Orlanth Rex, and gain the ability to access another set of Rune Magic.

We know you get a separate pool of Rune Points for use with each God you Initiate with, usually Associated Gods to a previous Initiation. I think that spells of all subcults of the same God would be drawing on the same, single, pool of Rune Points to be cast.

In the example of Initiation to Orlanth Rex, does the new Chieftain lose their potential access to the spells of their default subcult that they haven't yet learned? I don't think it would be fair to remove access to subcult Special Rune Magic that they had already sacrificed for, but it's possible.

I'd assume going 'up' to Rex would require another POW to be sacrificed (for one of the Rex spells).

Is it possible/acceptable to switch between Adventurous and Thunderous (either way)? More than once? I'd assume this would take a point of POW, if it were to be done. And it raises the same question as for Rex Initiates.

Is it possible to be Initiated in both Adventurous and Thunderous at the same time? If it is, is that also possible with Rex?

How do 'Hero Cults' work? They're not really a 'thing' in the core rules. Are they 'additional' subcults that grant potential access to a different set of Special Rune Magic? Or do they just grant access to the one (or a very few) additional spells specific to their own myth? As 'full' subcults, they'd switch (or not) the character's pool of potential spells to sacrifice for; if they're 'lesser' and simply don't offer that many spells, would that offer be additional to the 'main' subcult, or replace it (making adherents of the Hero Cult very much more specialised than general co-Religionists). An alternative mechanism would be to have a Hero Cult be a separate (but Associated) Cult: this would imply, I think, a separate pool of Rune Points for that Cult's Rune Spells (Common and Special), which is its own kettle of fish.

Any thoughts or answers?

1 hour ago, metcalph said:

It depends on what the nature of the major head is like in RQG.  The cult wasn't updated thoroughly for Shadows on the Borderland (insufficient time) so the only real reference is the Cults of Terror writeup - which has issues.  I could see a ghost being compelled to cast its rune magic but I have reservations about any magic being re-usable under the Thanatari's control.  

In RQG the Rune Points used to fuel the magic would only be regainable by a) Worship of the appropriate God; b) Votive items kept in Sacred places. The first source of replenishment wouldn't be very easy to achieve, I suspect. The second source would depend on the items being maintained and retaining their connection to the congregant. I can see that being more likely to persist, especially if the fate of the person was unknown to the custodian of the Votive item.

Another potential mitigation of the tactic:

If the Urzani is bound solely into the spearhead, the wielder would have to cast a control-type spell on the Elemental, using appropriate Sight spells to be able to perceive it 'at range' because they're not touching the enchantment, and they can't see the spearhead for the same reason as they can't cause a released Elemental to materialise in someone's gut normally (their bodily particles are in the way).

If the Salamander is bound into the spear 'generally', how specific is the "release" command: would the Elemental form around the whole spear, burning the hands of the wielder? Would it preferentially form where it is not enveloped by soggy flesh?

Given that there are other forms of Impaling weapons out there, how about doing this to arrowheads? Or a dagger with a Large Salamander bound...

11 hours ago, Pentallion said:

Which is how I'd be inclined to rule, but we've always played that once bound, the elemental is already embodied.

Ah. Trickier to prohibit then...

11 hours ago, Pentallion said:

So you can release it at will and it no longer requires the element to embody. 

[snip]

As for the impale condition, that's a target condition and I feel that's a valid condition.

Aside from thinking it's a bit of a bend of the "...who is affected by the enchantments in an item (or who is not affected)..." purpose of the Target Condition, I'm wondering how it applies. What your players are setting up is a Binding Enchantment. That doesn't have a target other than the Spirit to be bound. However, the actual Target Condition is nugatory, since a weapon, once impaled, is stuck in the victim, and there's plenty of time for the wielder to actively release the bound Elemental (assuming they are included in the User Conditions of the weapon), or even enough time to cast a Control Salamander and then release it. This would also apply to the victim, if they were aware of the presence of the Elemental in the spear tip.

I have assumed (and for the purposes of MG, that makes it true  . I recognise I may be wrong in the case of YG) that when a Spirit is released from its Binding, it does not materialise around the enchantment (because that would make releasing Bound Salamanders, or, indeed any Large Elemental, pretty fraught, and something you'd much prefer to do at range), but at some point nearby (in my Glorantha, that would be the 'reasonable amount of the relevant Element' within range), so the victim of such a stabbing could release the Salamander to somewhere else (rather than inside their own body). Lacking the requirement for a focal quantity of the element, I speculate on what is preventing any released Elemental from being conjured into solid/fluid existence within the boundaries of another entity's body, with similar effects to the spear-borne delivery system. Even if it's "sight targeting", releasing an Earth elemental to manifest at the back of someone's throat and have it pop into existence inside their head could be catastrophic.

12 hours ago, Pentallion said:

But I believe it would pour out of the body except for fire, which would ignite.  It has a coolness factor to it.  I don't think it's the best use of an enchantment, but there is the coolness factor.

It depends on how you envision the Elemental appearing. I struggle to visualise it without (my mandatory) focus of some existing element: does it expand to full cubic metreage uniformly from a point, or flow into existence a bit at a time? For me, the Elemental appears quickly enough that all four would cause catastrophic damage to the target they appeared inside of. Again, since this isn't a 'normal' attack mode with Elementals, there's got to be a reason it's not.

For me 'coolness factor' doesn't trump 'overpowered' in all cases. If the logical consequences of allowing a thing are going to make the world look different in a way that is going, in time, to tend Game Fun towards zero (how much fun is it going to be if every non-anti-fire-Rune spear has a Salamander popping out of it?), all the 'acute' maximisation of Game Fun in the world isn't worth it. So for me, allowing this would be pretty much starting the end game of the campaign, preparatory to starting another where the caper does not work.