Lordabdul

We are very happy to welcome Ian Cooper to talk about Questworlds, soon to be available from Chaosium! We also chat about HeroWars and HeroQuest, the Red Cow campaign, and much more!

It's been a long time since the last "newbie interview"! So while we wait for Joerg to replace his laptop, here's our newest Glorantha Initiation episode. We welcome Joel, who knows a few things about theology and philosophy, and isn't afraid to apply that to his newfound appreciation of Glorantha!

This episode welcomes Simon Bray and Nick Brooke to talk about Furthest, the "Crown Jewel of Lunar Tarsh". The "Lunar" is important apparently.

Our apologies for the hiatus over the holidays, followed by another hiatus caused by @Joerg's laptop having been somehow blown up by Orlanthi rebels who don't want us to tell you the truth about Tarsh. We hope you like this episode! And stay tuned for proper show notes.

Put on your best hat, because it's time for some Gloranthan freeforms! David Hall, Kevin Jacklin, and Joerg explain to Ludo what a freeform is, and how to play in one. We chat about gaming history, conventions, Tales of the Reaching Moon, strategically placed clouds, and more!

8 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

It is important to see Yinkin as a cat, so you can transform yourself to "become" a cat

It is important to see Odayla the hunter as a bear, so you can transform yourself to "become" a bear

It is not important to see Orlanth as a XXX even if he changed himself into XXX to do something

Is Barntar's look important for Barntar ? Is dark skin important for Humakt ?

It's relevant for Yinkin initiates to be able to do what their god does: be quiet, hide in the shadows, climb on top of furniture and knock down things for no reason, see in the dark, and tear the carpet to pieces. So they need Claws and Catseye and so on to do that.

You don't need to change sex to make it Rain.  Heler's cosmic role is the rain. It's not gender fluidity or whatever. In fact, a lot of water deities and spirits are described as "fluid" in their physical appearance. That's their nature (which sort of trends towards Quizilbashwoman's "Runes as genders" theory). Because if it was otherwise, they would have to all give some sort of related magic by your reasoning! So why just Heler?

Jeff has explained a few times pretty clearly that Gloranthan deities provide magic related to their cosmic role in the monomyth. That explains why this or that god provides or doesn't provide this or that magic. That's why Yelmalio doesn't provide much fighting magic, because although the initiates tend to often be  hoplite soldiers, their god's role in the cosmos isn't to be a war god, it's to be the god that keeps the lights on even when everything seems lost (I've argued in the past that if Yelmalio is missing any magic, it's some sort of "perseverance" magic like, say, letting you carry on even when at 0 HP or whatever). So that's why Heler doesn't give sex-change magic in the official RQG line, for whatever that's worth.

AFAIC you've got 3 solutions:

1. Just give Heler the Change Sex Rune spell and move on with your day! Maybe you don't agree with canon that "deities only provide magic related to their cosmic role in the monomyth". Go crazy, and give all your Glorantha deities a whole bunch of additional spells! That would probably be fun. Some of my players already have all the Rune magic of their god and it feels a bit, like... so what now?

2. Give Heler some myth that establishes their role in the cosmos as "the sex changer" or whatever. I have no idea how that would be relevant in the the monomyth. It would have to be different from Eurmal switching sexes to get by (or cause!) problems, obviously (his ability is an Illusion anyway). Then make up a Change Sex Rune spell. Enjoy the warm feeling that you stayed in the spirit of canon.

3. Make up a subcult of Heler that gives a Change Sex Rune spell by worshipping that aspect of Heler specifically. Or make a new associated cult that worships some sort of archetypal Water entity that is the source of all Water entities' abilities to be fluid in their shape and gender and sex and all that. Maybe it's Zaramak or Sramak themselves, or an aspect of them. Or make up a new Water deitiy. Enjoy the warm feeling of having expanded Glorantha the way Greg probably wanted.

2 hours ago, Tindalos said:

I mean, Yinkin does have some cat shapeshifting magic. Claws, cateye, and (through his grandparents) Transform Self.

Hah I missed it in the Associated Cults section 🙂  Well that messes up my argument but I guess my point still sort of stands. 😋

On 10/22/2023 at 4:29 AM, radmonger said:

The write-up of Heler in the Jonstown Compendium book Six Paths has Change Sex as a 3 point reusable rune spell (provided to both Vinga and Nanda).

Note that Six Paths has Change Sex as a "Self" spell, which means the Heler, Vinga, or Nanda initiate can cast it only on themselves. I mention it just in case @French Desperate WindChild wanted something where, say, a PC/NPC goes to see some Heler priest who is able to cast that sort of magic on them. Of course, it's easy to change "Self" into "Touch" or whatever. If it was me, I would also make it at least into a Ritual spell, too, instead of Instant. A quick "Change Sex" spell you can cast in a combat round sounds more like an Eurmali Illusion to me.

On 10/22/2023 at 1:17 AM, French Desperate WindChild said:

A helering has no mean to change sex  (don't tell"heroquest" 😉 ) and worship a god able to be male or female or both or none or...

Personally speaking, I really don't like the treatment of Heler and Vinga as "the trans-people's deities that lets you be trans". I'm glad it's gone.

More generally speaking, Rune magic and heroquest gifts give you the ability to wield the power of a deity. That is: something that they did in the God Time as part of their "story arc". Changing sex isn't something that Heler did in the God Time, that's just what they are. Yinkin is sometimes a shadowcat, and sometimes a human with a cat head. Does that give you a magic spell to change your head or your entire body into that of a cat? No, you're worshipping the cat god, but you are still you, you're not him. Heler doesn't have sex-changing magic for the same reason Yinkin doesn't have cat shapeshifting magic, Barntar doesn't have magic to make you look like a super fit Viking farmer, and Humakt doesn't have magic to make your skin dark. On the other hand, Odayla does give you shapeshifting magic because one of his main myths is going on a hunt for the Sky Bear and returning in its form.

17 hours ago, radmonger said:

By the rules, a member of the orlanth/yinkin cult knows the _Worship Orlanth_ skill, and does not know the _Worship Yinkin_ skill. It would take a lot of dedicated training to take that skill from a 5% base to a usable level. i could see the Lunars doing that for converts to the Seven Mothers, but not in most other cases.

AFAIC there is no "Orlanth/Yinkin cult". My understanding of the rules (I could be mistaken of course) is that you're simply an initiate of Orlanth, or an initiate of Yinkin, with the associated Rune Points and Worship skills and all that. Why would it be any more complicated than that? (before you answer that, skip all the text below and read item 4 at the bottom)

The one thing that does get complicated is the question "where do you worship?" (including where do you get your Rune spells and skill training and so on). This is where temple sizes come into effect. So if you're one of the few Yinkin initiates in a tribe, you have no temple to Yinkin (specifically) nearby. However, because Yinkin is an associated cult of Orlanth, there might be a shrine to Yinkin inside the local Orlanth temple. If that Orlanth temple is a Major Temple, it has the infrastructure for one associated cult worship in it. If it's a Great Temple, it has infrastructure for all associated cults' worships. Most tribal centres have a Major Temple to Orlanth and Ernalda, so in our games we sort of decide as a group what associated cult is at each town or city temple we visit, and then it's written in my GM notes for future reference (we do the same for what Rune spell is taught at what shrine, for instance). If your Yinkin initiate is lucky enough to live near Boldhome or Nochet, then bingo, they have a place to worship Yinkin and replenish Rune Points and learn spells and so on since I belive they have Great Temples to Orlanth.

We do have a few problems though:

1. There is confusion between "temple"/"shrine" (the colloquial terms), and "Temple"/"Shrine" (the mechanical terms)... This is a broader problem with RQG rules, but it's particular exacerbated with the Worship rules because it's common, for instance, to have a Shrine that happens to be a temple in-world, or vice-versa. For instance, Chalana Arroy often has Shrines in cities that are, in fact, entire buildings akin to hospitals. So in-world people would say "let's go give offerings to the Chalana Arroy temple". A lot of in-world text in the books would use those terms and this leads to confusion.
2. The RQG rules say that Major Temples have one single associated cult, but they don't say what size of Temple that would be, mechanically speaking . I play it that Major and Great Temples have Shrines (in a mechanical sense) to associated cults. So that Yinkin corner in the local Orlanth Major Temple would be a Shrine.
3. Figuring out what associated/sub-cults might be present in Minor and Major Temples is either an exercise in world-building or in gameplay balance. If you're like me, you would build some cult distribution spreadsheets for the entire City Confederation that the tribe is part of, and then allocate worshippers and lay-members to Temples and Shrines until you run out. Yinkin would probably never make the cut for anything above a Site except for, say, some uncommon clan/tribe/city that might have Yinkin as their local patron deity. Depending on what the player said during session zero, the campaign might magically happen around one such clan/tribe/city. Otherwise, that Yinkin initiate will have to travel to the nearest cult holy place (like, say, Boldhome or Kero Fin), but that can all happen during downtime between adventures if we want.
4. Yinkin does of course have a "special" connection with Orlanth that goes beyond a simple associated cult: the Lightbringers book specifies that the cult often functions as a "subcult of Orlanth Adventurous". To me, this doesn't mean any sort of Orlanth Yinkin cult separate from the Yinkin cult.... the way I understand it is that, yay, you can now correct everything I just said about Shrines and Temples, and consider that Major Temples to Orlanth have a lot more chances to have a Shrine to Yinkin specifically in them (RQG says that Major Temples host "several" subcults, so it's still up to you, see previous point), so now maybe there are Yinkin Shrines also in, say, Jonstown or whatever.

We finally have Jeff on the show, talking all things Cults of RuneQuest, revisions of Glorantha material, and even a surprise lore auction!

On 9/8/2023 at 7:19 PM, Godlearner said:

We only roll to cast a spell "in combat", outside of combat they are auto cast. This goes for all spells no matter the type spirit, divine, sorcery, whatever.

Same here. Occasionally, a player might roll for a Rune spell anyway, in the hopes that they score a critical success and spend no Rune Points. The downside is of course that they might get a fumble instead and waste some Rune points. But generally they go with the auto-success outside of combat.

p151: “They pursued him into the Neleomi Sea” -> Neliomi Sea

p131: “with terrible consequences to the population protecting by them.” -> not sure if it should be “protected by them” or “protecting them”… maybe it’s a new brilliant turn of phrase to mean both 😝

p107: “The temple's defensive spirits (often formed by Create Ghost)” -> probably should be Bind Ghost, not Create Ghost

p96: “Heler is the child of Sramake” -> “Heler is the child of Sramak“

p89: it says that lay members "...gain the title Hunter and may go on the Great Hunt." However, later on the same page, under the Rune Lord section: "Each year, there is a Great Hunt in which normally only Master Hunters take part." So which is it? Can only Master Hunters go on the Great Hunt, or not? It sounds like the Great Hunt is where Rune Lords are nominated in the first place so it seems nonsensical that only Rune Lords can take part... so I think "which normally only Master Hunters take part." should be removed from the Rune Lord section, and "and may go on the Great Hunt" should be added to the mundane benefits of full initiates, so that everybody can take part.

p89: "they must unfailingly fulfil it" -> "they must unfailingly fulfill it"

p93: "This ritual creates a whirlvish (Glorantha Bestiary, page 186)", but Whirlvishes are described and given a statblock on the next page. The text varies quite a lot between the two versions...

Page 2, "described in the Sacred Earth volume" -> "the Earth Goddesses volume" ?

Page 41, "Everyone wished her to on their side" -> "to be on their side"

2 hours ago, Karlak One-eye said:

I cannot work out how to post a hidden "spoiler beware" post so I simply attach a word doc. Please don't open if you want to avoid spoilers, otherwise enjoy.

Thanks a lot for this!   It's amazing that your game has been fast-forwarded into an alternate 1700s future!  And it was very enjoyable to read -- I love the obvious amount of roleplaying that happens at your table, good job to everybody involved. I'm happy one of your players got a crystal out of this so far 😄 

In case @Crel's review wasn't enough and you're still on the fence about getting the book, here's my review on the God Learners' website! I hope it's useful and/or insightful! It features a good boy, and some footnotes, so you know it's serious.

There's still canon as far as I know but Jeff says they're "very rare", FWIW.

2 hours ago, Zalain said:

If the first sorecerer teach the spell to his mates, will they be able to get tainted too? ...or maybe trigger the spelll against them during the lesson?

I guess it depends on what, in your own Glorantha, is the "logic" to pass on Chaotic taint.  IMHO teaching or learning a spell might not cause someone to get a Chaotic taint, but maybe casting it could, depending on the circumstances... it's up to you, but the general rule of "more trouble means more fun" applies 😄  

1 hour ago, Karlak One-eye said:

Running this at the moment. A great story which my player managed to de-rail in the first session through entirely reasonable role playing decisions. Thanks for putting it together. 

Woooo, very intriguing! Please share what happened!  😄 (here or in a private message)

A Short Detour is part of the Christmas in July sale. You have two weeks to grab it for cheaper! A big thanks to everybody who rated it or posted reviews, this is much appreciated!