Grimmshade

Mine is still "Awaiting Shipment", but I suspect I ordered relatively late. 

7 hours ago, Crel said:

IMHO RQG's sorcery has some really cool concepts, executed... mediumly. I'm guessing the forthcoming Gods of Glorantha book will be similar in style and content to the Gloranthan Classics one (which I wish so, so desperately they still had in dead elf). The sorcery chapter does come with a disclaimer that it will be further added to and expanded in future supplements, but I get that's not much help right now. As it stands, RQG's sorcery doesn't really have a good already-written way to play a necromancer. It's best suited for sorcery-using initiates of Lhankor Mhy (with a few other things tossed in, which give potential for further expansion).

I suppose you could come up with an Animate Corpse spell by using the Command technique to manipulate the Man/Body and Death Runes? I dunno how a corpse would be best expressed.

If you're interested in my own writeup I can PM you my current version. It's a work-in-progress, but could be helpful. I intend to eventually put a "finished" version up someday, but that'll be like months and months down the line.

The Bestiary has some cool Zorag necromancer Rune spells that I was thinking about turning into sorcery ones. The sorcery section in the Core book is a bit disappointing. The only necromancy spell in there gives no real explanation how it works.

I'll definitely take a look at your stuff if you want to send it!

41 minutes ago, Crel said:

There's some great rules bouncing around the web for playing Malkioni sorcerers, written by Sandy Petersen back in the 90's. I don't have a link, but I'm sure someone around here can help?... One of the nice things with BRP games is that different rulesets mesh together fairly well. However, it does depend on how canon-friendly you want your Glorantha to be. I'm not familiar with the nitty-gritty, but my take is that those rules (which sets up the West as pseudo-medieval fantasy, to my reading) are now considered pretty outside canon due to the Guide, which I don't actually own and haven't read.

I've been working on a sorcery writeup I'd be willing to share, if you're interested. It's a mess, and the rules are super "crunchy," which might not be a good fit for your game either. It's the rules my playgroup uses. It melds some concepts from M.A. Barker's Tekumel/Empire of the Petal Throne into Glorantha as sorcerous Saints of Stability and Demons of Change. One of the players in my group plays a sorcerer following Sarku, the Five-Headed Lord of Worms, who's all about the perfection of the intellect and lichdom and whatnot.

The guide was the only new book I decided not to buy, so I'm not super worried about strict canon. I wish the book of cults and gods was available, but I'm hoping I can get close enough to a necromancer with sorcery. I haven't made it through all the magic chapters yet though.

The picture of the pregen Yanioth Vareena's Daughter has glowing blue snakes on her arms. Is that just fluff roleplaying set dressing, or is it a more meaningful spell effect?

One of my players was inspired by the picture to ask if she could have some simple "cantrips" that do things like make her eyes glow and have spirit-like dragon wings appear from her back when she casts a spell. 

Is it normally cool to allow PC's some free roleplay "cantrips"? Can this stuff be done with a Rune roll?

Would there be a better way to be a necromancer of the animate dead variety? OR is there another cult? (I doubt it would be detailed in RQG yet, but maybe I could sub in the Zorak game mechanics)

On 9/4/2018 at 4:05 AM, PhilHibbs said:

The middle point also raises another concern of mine over augments in general, which is that if you have less than 50% in a skill, then trying to use it to help is usually counterproductive. So if I am arm wrestling with someone and using STR vs STR on the resistance table, and I have training specifically in arm wrestling up to 45% skill, I am probably worse off by using my training to improve my chance of winning. Until I can get my skill over 50%, it is more harm than good. Someone with Battle 45% should be better at laying an ambush than someone with no Battle skill at all.

It also goes against the normal tradition when failing a skill - failing a climb or jump is not disastrous, you don't fall to your death, you just make no progress for a while. Failing an attack roll has no consequences whatsoever, except that you didn't hurt your enemy (or they might have damaged your weapon with a successful parry). Failing a skill augment should not incur a penalty, and I will almost certainly houserule that way. Not sure about passion or runic inspiration, I might keep the failure penalty on that, as passions and runes typically start higher and the benefit is more flexible and long term. A skill augment is typically just for a single roll.

I can't weigh in on the main topic, but when I start running the game the argument above has certainly sold me on dropping failure penalties for augment rolls. I'll still apply a penalty on a fumble, but a penalty for failure just doesn't make sense to me.

Turns out my players are so eager that they already know the world better than I do from wikis and such!

1 minute ago, Joerg said:

If you're only a C-list celebrity, you need to augment your use of reputation...

So you would augment your Rep before rolling your Rep to augment a social roll?

That's actually pretty cool. What would that look like in game? Something like flourishing your weapon and making a weapon roll while stating your reputation?

Reputation seems useless until over 50%. You get a penalty for failing a Reputation roll to impress someone, so why would you risk it unless you had at least a 50% rep? 

This is all fine, because characters should have to build a rep before it means something, and it's cool that someone unimpressive gets ridiculed for trying to be impressive. The worrying part is that important npc's in the GM Kit (Rune Lords and such) have Reputation below 50%. It seems like those types of people should certainly be at a level where they could comfortably use their Reputation to their benefit.

Is it a bit wonky?

The pyromancer player had done some investigating of wikis and was already considering Lightbringer it turns out.

I found Zorak in the Bestiary and it sounds perfect for the necromancer. (do humans belong to the cult as well?) I'm assuming that the create zombie spell creates a zombie and not a revenant like the text says.

Semi-forbidden necromancy will be good for story purposes!

I'll look into Dara Happens, as that seems to fit fire scribe pretty well.

27 minutes ago, womble said:

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'!

Thanks man, that sounds perfect.

33 minutes ago, boztakang said:

Lots of options available for that:

• A bog standard Lhankor Mhy "initiate" sorcerer with the Fire rune mastered.
• An (apprentice) Shaman specializing in Fire spirits (see Oakfed)
• An Elmal Initiate for a smattering of Divine fire magic.  (see the elmal/yelmalio thread for waaaay more info than you probably ever wanted to know about this)
• or, possibly a Volcano worshipper from Caladraland - just a smidge outside the core area (south of Esrolia) but near enough to be plausible. 

wrt the draconic char ideas, though I'm likely a bit late to the party here, she could always be an actual "Dream Dragon" except that the dragon is dreaming that it is human and doesn't know how to regain its "true" draconic form. That gives you as GM a lot of leeway for how and when to introduce draconic elements. She could have a variety of re-skinned spirit or divine spells related to her draconic nature (Protection gives her scales, Disrupts spits little balls of flame, etc) Or, she could just occasionally get flashes of her draconic nature as GM fiat. Even to the point of actually transforming fully into an actual Dream Dragon in some hopeless situation where total party wipe might otherwise reasonably occur. She could have one or more skills (like a "dragon rune" affinity) that slowly increase and allow her access to new abilities, or they could simply show up "randomly" at the GMs whim.

Because her character actually IS a dragons dream, there doesn't have to be a whole lot of backstory or logic to the whole thing. She seems like a perfectly normal human, or at least like a True Dragon's perception of what a perfectly normal human might be. She'd be oddly ignorant of some things "everyone knows" and deeply knowledgeable about other arcane things that she could never possibly have experienced as a mortal. (like understanding what a dragonewt is doing and why)

anyhoo - just another option for you to use, adapt or ignore as best suits you.

Thanks for the pyromancer options.

That dream dragon thing sounds great actually! I'm pretty sure she could mold that into her basic idea too. Thanks!

17 minutes ago, jeffjerwin said:

Necromancy is possible though Shamanism (ancestor-worship, contacting, binding and exorcising ghosts), theism (Zorak Zoran is one of the great non-chaotic necromantic cults; Shargash is too distant from the core setting (and not in the rules yet...)), and sorcery (Death rune manipulation).

Nontraya may or may not be Chaotic, but he's an enemy of the Earth pantheon and would be hunted by Babeester Gor initiates, along with a slew of others. 

Gark and Vivamort are definitely Chaotic. Nontraya was equated with Vivamort by the God-Learners.

Necromancy is Delecti's special niche in Dragon Pass and he will take an interest, particularly if the character is not a Zorak Zorani.

Thanks for that! Being totally new, I had no idea where to begin with necromancy in the setting.

What would a "pyromancer" look like in the setting? 

42 minutes ago, Al. said:

How about an amnesiac Dragonewt?

Since your boss doesn't know huge amounts about Glorantha and lengthy exposition is dull for all concerned that neatly sidesteps all that. She doesn't know because her character doesn't know.

It also gives a reason for adventuring: how did I lose my memory? what's a memory? what is a me?

The Dragonewt's meddling with Necromancy might be related to that amnesia. Cause? Effect? Completely irrelevant?

 

Since nobody in either Glorantha or Real Land understands Dragonewts or how they behave, or why; that should apply doubly to an amnesiac, lost, forgotten Dragonewt. Hence nobody can tell you that you're doing it wrong. (And if everybody in your game is new to Glorantha then there is nobody to feel upset that you are doing it wrong anyway)

A great idea! However, this was almost exactly the background plot of her D&D4e dragonborn character. Still, I might be able to work it in as it would make all the stuff we don't know easier.

All the setting depth is pretty daunting, but I'm looking forward to a deep dive into the Core book this week. Hopefully I'll come out with a better overall idea of things.

Looks like my player group will tentatively be:

-the "necromancer" with some sort of dragon ties. (Are there necromancer's?!)

-either a centaur hunter or a baboon farmer.

-a human "chronicler" (scribe I think) "pyromancer" (not sure what this would be, possibly someone who summons fire elementals)

-one undecided.

Are they acceptable as PC's?

I'll probably start the campaign in the recommended year from the Core.

Wow, this is a great community. I've already run out of "likes" and "thanks" to give people today (I didn't know there was a limit!) Thanks for all the advice and insight so far!

Video Pete's idea of a dragon transformed to man is very close to my wife's original idea. I'll definitely be looking into that!

I'll also check out the Path of Immanent mastery, magisaurs, and Maran Gor Priestess after work today, as they all sound very cool.

I'll probably drop some of the wacky nature of Dragonewt, and make them a bit more like samurai or Zen monks in my game. It feels like that still follows at least the basics laid out in the Bestiary.

I like to go big in campaigns, so what if this act was something involving the human world, maybe an act of vengeance on a human or a settlement. The Inhuman King or a human sorcerer/shaman (or a temple's/cult's god) punishes her by making her reborn human, and out of the cycle of rebirth. She eventually finds and reanimates her old body because (right or wrong) she thinks she can re-enter the cycle with it. (She also wants revenge)

I know I'm sticking hard to this background, but I generally like to let the players make whatever characters they want to play within reason in the system. I also realize I don't know much about Glorantha (yet!) I'm not even sure how the Runes relate to the gods.

Thanks guys!

So here is what she has decided upon. (Keep in mind we are Gloranthan noobs, and advice/suggestions are more than welcome!)

She was a dragonewt who really failed during her last lifetime. Was really evil or something. Instead of reincarnating in another dragonewt form, she reincarnated as human. 

Now, this part we haven't totally figured out yet, but she wants to be a necromancer and to have her old body as an automaton/mount. (It wouldn't be any more powerful than a bison or something)

What she was thinking is that she was really advanced, almost dragon, and then really messed up, OR alternatively she was cursed by a rival/god/etc. 

Thoughts?

I was wondering if the Dragonewt would be possible as a PC? My wife loves playing lizard/dragon types, and it's the only real lizard type I see in the Bestiary.

Also, the Telmori werewolves are listed as being a possible PC race, but in the book there isn't a section calling them out as such.

 Hi all, I just went ahead and purchased the entire RQG collection so far. 

Is there going to be a GM book that is different than the GM kit? If so, what's going to be in it? (I guess I assumed the GM Kit was the book that is mentioned in the Core)

Is the errata mostly fixed in the current PDF and print version? (I see an enchanted iron bit of errata that doesn't seem to be fixed in my current Core PDF)

The GM kit (I think) said something about Rune-fixes, but I don't see those anywhere.

Probably some other questions I'm forgetting. Awesome looking game, can't wait to try it. I owned the first edition way back in the day, and the 6th edition more recently, but have forgotten almost all of my Glorantha knowledge.