Michael Cule

I once asked Greg (at one of the Q&A sessions during one of the Leicester conventions) what the world of Glorantha was like after the end of the Gods War, in the time of the Harshaxi. He grinned and gestured out of the window to the alleged 'real world'.

Londros is on the map in THE PEGASUS PLATEAU of the area around the Plateau. It's shown as south of the Stream and thus in the Zethnoring clan, which used to be Colymar but is currently part of the Locaem tribe (which fits some parts of the standard biography but not others). Is she still around in 1625 or later? I had the feeling that there had been an announcement of her departing for the Halls of Humakt somewhere. When my players passed through the town on their way to try to acquire Hippogriff mounts I told them that the locals believe her dead and have erected a statue of her holding a wooden sword bigger than herself and staring balefully at the Red Moon.

Which explains why he looked a little queasy as he marched up out of the sea to his destiny. Incidentally, in my Glorantha it was Belintar that Kallyr was trying to bring back when she attempted the Short Lightbringer's Quest.

"What's the big deal?" Well, I'd like to know that too. Thing is Da Rulz Say (p 422 under Standard of Living) "An adventurer must maintain their standard of living..." What happens if they can't? What happens if they can't pay their Cult Tithes in the paragraph above? What happens if they can't pay any taxes? If this is a thing you must do... why is there no clear guidance for the consequences if the mandatory becomes impossible? I'm more than a little tempted to throw away the whole economic system and handwave everything... Except that I need something to give my players a sense of what they can and can't afford, when they are doing well and doing badly. Ah well, back to the drawing board. I note (incidentally) that except for Priest and Noble most of the professions that PCs are going to come from are at 60 basic income or less. Not many Crafters volunteering to be Bloody Great Heroes. But plenty of Warriors, plenty of Hunters and a few Thieves. To answer a few more questions: 'breaking even' means having enough resources to maintain your Standard of Living and pay all your tithes without cutting into savings. I can see that in some circumstances the economic situation can provoke adventure or opportunity but that's not the primary reason characters are going adventuring. That's Honour and the other Passions and a desire to keep their people and families free. And though in my current game the PCs aren't married in my attempt to do the DORASTOR campaign with RQ:G it mattered enormously whose family was growing and healthy and whose was withering under the dual attacks of Chaos eruptions and the Lunar taxgatherers.

Belintar was a time traveller from the bleak future of the time of writing KING OF SARTAR. One of his names was 'the Harshax' which is all the proof I needed. (I believed it before I read that.) This may or may not tie in with the truly loopy theory some people have that dragons are moving in the opposite time direction to everyone else.

My problem isn't with the fact that there will be up years and down years so much. It's the fact that for all except (maybe) the nobles and upwards, every year is likely to be bad. You earn enough money to sustain your lifestyle if you make a normal roll and then on top of that tithes and taxes and the lord knows what. (If that isn't intended to be the case then it's another rule that needs rewriting so elderly gentlemen of advancing years like me can understand it.) My feeling is that unless campaign considerations are deliberately imposing bad times for all most people should be able to keep their heads just about above water. (If that isn't the case, then gods dammit it all, what did we rebel against the Lunars for? Eh? Eh/ Answer me that!) (Sorry, a bit of in-character waffle bursting through there.) Another point that worries me is the multiple player character households when those are the household of a noble and the other players are their retainers. Now I'm attempting to write the rules, it is of course turning out a lot harder... Never mind: they're only in Fire Season at the moment....

Yes, I've seen that and as I said, I'm unimpressed. And I think most people think that the bad times can come again. I agree. Argrath will want an extra pound of flesh from someone if the Lunars don't. My players (and I think I agree with them) think that you might be able to augment rolls with Passions and Runes for a particular action or sequence of actions... But nobody stays inspired for a whole year. Magic is different of course: the Bless Crops ritual is intended to last long enough to make a difference.

My player characters are (and many player characters will be given the way Chaosium has set things up) people who go on adventures but who also have responsibilities and assets. The Sacred Time roll is pointless for rootless wanderers: the adventurers in Pavis should have a pure cash account and should be driven by the need to pay rent, pay taxes and tithes, feed themselves. They have a huge pile of ancient treasure wrapped up in monsters and general danger to mind, body and soul right next door. The Sacred Time totting up of how the year went is appropriate for the people who have lives even if they are going out from their normal lives and doing the things that need doing because they live in Interesting Times. They may be driven partly by economic need when bad things happen to the people they are responsible for and to but mostly they will be driven by Duty and Honour. That's how you get them to take part in stuff. So, I think I'll try the Wealth stat as a mechanic. One more tweak: I think the one thing you can use to augment it is your Reputation. If you are willing to risk it you can say: "But will you not extend a little credit to the man who saved the Queen's life at the battle of SomewhereOrOther" and maybe the hard hearted bankers will take that into consideration... But if you fail or worse yet fumble your reputation drops when they start to gossip: "You'll never guess who's down on their uppers now..."

I recognised that the economic system is based on the PENDRAGON version... And I got into trouble with that one too. Too damn easy to spiral down into debt, despair and dead horses. If the system as presented is supposed to be handwaved... then why do the pricelists come in Clacks, Lunars and Wheels? Why is the base income that people make on a typical year not quite enough to live on after taxes and tithes? When my players tried to take the system seriously they inevitably ended up short and that's a recipie for starvation long term, not adventure. (Starvation is not fun.) And that's before the extra wartime taxes and general Lunar extortion. Yes, you can take coin and turn it into Wealth rating. I'm thinking of starting out with a one way conversion rate of 20 L (or 1 Wheel) to a percentage point of Wealth. That may not work out right in practice but it feels right at the moment. Converting back isn't as easy because you're using the money you put into Wealth to buy capital investments like land, equipment, cattle and what have you and if you try to liquidate that you'll never get twenty Lunars to the Wheel. So you use the Wealth system, rolling and hoping you don't take too big a hit. I think there may be a basic difference of design philosophy here. I'm not sure what it is but it's there.

Thank you! That map is going to be very useful. Is it an extract from some other project? The style doesn't look familiar.

I'm aware that the current rules are there to get the players into economic trouble... But if I want economic trouble to come their way I'll be the one to decide that as a story and campaign based matter. The current RQ:G rules seem to mean that most people will find themselves unable to pay for their needed lifestyle support and religious and secular taxation without dipping into savings and then assume that people will have savings because they have been out adventuring... Nah, this is nonsensical. Also too much like accountancy to be fun. I'll go with the CoC model and see what I can do with it. Yes, there are hard times all around... But the rules are not only harsh but also insufficiently detailed. Consider that Nobles are supposed to have retainers. Such a noble as the Thane of Apple Lane needs some warriors at least. If PCs are on board with being retainers of the (PC) Thane it leads to some... peculiar self referential loops and questions I can't answer. How many retainers can a Thane have and still eat? How many do they need to maintain their status? Do they need servants as well? Or is that just Thanes who live in cities? I can take money from them at any time. Fees for healing and resurrection are commonplace. They also want to spend money on iron armour and weaponry... I want my life to be simpler and if that makes the players' lives simpler I'll just have to live with that.

Ah hah I've got CITIZENS OF THE LUNAR EMPIRE somewhere... Let me go and steal adapt stuff....

Argrath split himself into seven parts (or was split: there was a dragonnewt with a very sharp edge involved) in order to be able to carry out the dread task his inscrutable masters laid upon him: to end the Third Age with the death of the Gods. The parts reassembled after he had become Prince of Sartar and King of Dragon Pass. Not all of them survived. I wrote some poems back in the 80s/90s about this: called Rejected Notes From The Composite History they went on the old mailing list and one of them THE WOLFRUNNER'S SONG was published in TRADETALK.

I find the economic rules in RQG a bit... under playtested. I keep having questions from my players and it seems hostile to easy book-keeping. I'm planning on replacing them with something more like the Credit Rating rules from CoC 7th edition which allow for both handwaved background economic management and for particular expenses and financial crises when the GM wants to make that a focus of the story. Has anyone already done this?

I'm coming up to the date set down in Glorananthan history (i.e. in KING OF SARTAR) for the battle that brought Kallyr Starbrow to her death. My player-characters are the Thane of Apple Lane and her friends and retainers. They are going to be commanded to rally with the forces of the Colymar tribe to support the armies of Kallyr, Prince of Sartar (if only just). Now KoS says the battle was fought 'where the Creek meets the Upland Marsh'. Looking at the map from the Gamesmaster's pack there's a town there: Two Sisters. Does anyone know anything about Two Sisters? It appears to be twin towns on both sides of the Creek. I know the account of the Battle in KoS: does anyone have better information?