Lordabdul

For more kamehameha logic, you could go full on with 1 MP = +X% to the Resistance Roll (with X somewhere between 1 and 5).

The motivation is simple: that's her job. If the chieftain or high priest or king or whoever comes over to some priest and says "hey we need a cool new magical object", then she has to make that cool magical object. It could be to replace a previous lost magical object, or it could be to grow the tribe's magical loot, or it could be for an important gift to an allied king, or to give to a recently promoted thane, or whatever. But that's her job. What I think your real question is, rather, is "how does she do her job when she has to maintain POW 18 or lose that job". Basically, there is a conundrum between the job requiring spending POW, and the job requiring keeping POW. I think the answer is two-fold: (1) take it slow, and (2) let the Rune Lords do it. Take it slow We can probably assume that Rune Priests get a POW gain roll every season, on account of leading many worship ceremonies and dealing with spirits, among other things. So whenever a Rune Priest drops from POW 19 to 18, they have a 92% chance of gaining that POW point back within the following year (6 seasons), and 72% chance of gaining it back in half that time (3 seasons). I think there's a good chance this Rune Priest can afford to sacrifice POW a couple times a year on most years, for whatever reason (enchantment or otherwise). And as mentioned by others, when enchanting items, she's most definitely doing it by leading a ceremony where other people provide all the additional POW going in the item, so she only needs to sacrifice 1 POW. If you consider a tribe like the Colymar, with a hundred Rune Masters (RQGMA p12), how many are Rune Priests? Let's say a generously low 20. The tribe can therefore have their priests sacrifice, say, half a dozen POW points a year in total without straining their resources, with room left to spend POW for gaining new Rune Points. Let the Rune Lords do it If I'm not mistaken, Rune Lords have access to enchantments, but don't need to maintain a POW of 18. Plus, they are most of the time the main clientele for fancy magical objects, so you might as well let them do it! Let the Rune Priests spend that POW on other stuff.

Thanks MOB! It was really enlightening to see how you weave tales and adventures out of all the material available from published sources. I’m looking forward to the second part!

Because my campaign is set around Alone (whose tribes are Tarshite refugees of the Battle of Grizzly Peak), I asked that very question a few months ago on Facebook. Hold on to your pants, here are the most notable replies I got: 1. From @Ian Cooper 2. From @davecake 3. From Thomas Iverson (I'm not sure if he's on BRP) 4. Last but not least, from @Jeff Jeff's and Ian's answers are of course the ones I paid the most attention to.

And there I was wondering why all our heroquests were failing miserably... my plan is to replace all animal deities in Glorantha with Mantis-Shrimp deities, so.... let's just say that if you use "Transform Self" a couple months from now, you might get freaked out a little bit if you're not prepared. But I assure you it's going to be an improvement.

Issue 5 is out now! If you don't already follow the blog, you'll get our first "recovered document" from our archiving efforts. Expect some more useless writings in the future on a variety of topics (there's a lot of junk in this tower!).

My own 2 cents (with some overlap with what's already been said): Reduce the number of enemies, or make them dumb(er). I'm very good at running dumb NPCs because I run them the same way I play my PCs. I'm not very good at combat... I like @jajagappa's idea of retainers as an alternative to 2 characters or more per players (I don't like playing more than 1 character, except for DCC-type funnels, funnily enough!). But I would personally just make it obvious that they can grab NPCs from their communities or wherever they currently are. This makes it possible for the GM to have fun with a small gallery of NPCs that come for help (which further opens up story options), or for the players to have fun with various sidekicks (if you let them control these NPCs when they come and go). Note that in Call of Cthulhu, having the PCs underpowered and outnumbered is the default premise of the game. Calling upon contacts in the police or the mafia, drawing upon the resources of Delta Green or whatever organization you're part of, and seeking non-confrontational solutions (such as a grimoire with a banishment spell) are all what you're encouraged to do, because direct combat isn't viable. So you can adapt CoC's gameplay tropes by having the PCs draw upon allies and family, look for new alliances and ancient historical precedents from some obscure parchment in a Lhankor Mhy temple, and other such non-combat ways to solve a conflict. Of course, unlike CoC, in RuneQuest we *do* want direct, epic, glorious combat, but it can be all about honourable 1:1 combat against the enemy champion, or big battles where armies clash and the PCs are in the middle of the battleground like everybody else. It's only in the "middle ground" of combat encounters (PCs against 10 Scorpionmen) that you run into balance problems, so you can avoid those when you can't balance the encounter. Alternatively, you can make many combat-encounter-oriented scenarios into heists, basically. What was previously meant to be a party of 6 warriors cleaning up a troll cave is now a party of 2 sneaky spies trying to assassinate the Kyger Lytor priestess or steal one of her magic items.

That makes sense, but then it means that those "Free" occupations are exceptions to the definition of "Free" being people with land, a plow, and some oxen. Which is fine too but, well, not quite specified in the definition of "Free", which is why there is some confusion.

Thanks! I suspected that it might be a character but couldn't read the nameplates in the screenshot... also you said that character was airborne? Using what? The Flight Rune Spell is pretty expensive when you want to lift yourself... Anyway, I don't see anything wrong with the way they used the spells. Sounds all good to me, although the "broadcasting of Find Enemy" sounds pretty generous to me as a reading of how the spell works. My own reading is just that all the PCs will only be aware of anybody wanting to harm Terris specifically.

@7Tigers was theorizing that this might be in the area of RuneGate for the upcoming Upland Marsh book of adventures...

And who's to say that the beefcake painting is for his original body? Maybe it's his more, ahem, "popular" one.

According to RQG's Occupations, hunters are "Poor" and not "Free". For the others (merchants and crafters), I don't see what's the problem: they have some land, but they are busy with their main occupation and are therefore probably letting a bunch of "semi-free" tenants take care of it. The description was about having land and someone to plow it -- there was nothing about having to do it yourself. I imagine that it's like nowadays where many wealthy people have an apartment or two that they rent out, a country house with fields and animals that a nearby farmer is taking care of, and so on. It's not quite clear to me though if, say, a Crafter that makes 80L as a base income (RQG p65) is making this as a combination of occupation and land surplus, or what. Like, does the tribe assign land to Crafters as a way to support themselves so that they can live as specialists? Does this mean the Crafter would have discounts (or even free inventory) for clan/tribe members as opposed to foreigners? I'm not sure what the social and economic contract is there. You'd think that "because they're heroic adventurers", or "because that's their job in the clan", or "because they have Loyalties to their community", or just "because we're playing a game" would be enough? But hey, if you need a spreadsheet of compound loan interests to motivate your PCs, I guess that works too for some people 😄 The "basic income is barely enough to sustain you" was never the main motivator to go adventuring anyway. At best it's a little push, at worst it's just a mechanic to add some story elements. Besides, only the "Free" occupations at exactly 60L exhibit this weird problem because they're right on the line. I don't know if it's a fluke or if it was intended.

Issue 4 is out! It's big, and we have a little teaser/announcement for some upcoming shenanigans...

I asked a whole lot of questions not too long ago, and the answers were compiled in the RQG Q&A. Check them out! Also check out previous discussion on it, and some Orlanthi story about the ritual. Generally it's a Chaos spirit. See the examples in the links above. I personally like to be vague and gross -- oozing, tentacles, teeth and fingers and eyes and spider legs and whatever else sounds ugly. So it's not any particular spirit, but just "some weird ass Chaotic stuff". In some cases, however, it can be something more mundane, such as a rival clan, some Lunars, some Telmori, some trolls, etc. Whatever is the PCs' community's particular main enemy is, or the enemy the PCs need to fight immediately after (more or less as part of an extended ritual... see my questions about Vasana's saga in the Q&A). IMHO, as many people as you want -- as long as the effigy is still fighting, and as long as there's enough space and time to involve all these people. I would personally rule that anybody who got one hit against the effigy qualifies as being a "participant" for the bonuses given in the outcome of the ritual. It will *sound* easy at first but, especially with Chaotic stuff that always has some weird ability, the GM can easily turn it around and make it hard when the effigy starts regrowing twice as many tentacles as the PCs cut (again, see Vasana's example explained in the Q&A). But generally yes: making things not too easy and not too hard is always tricky in skill based systems like RQ 🙂

I just realized that the Tournament of the Masters of Luck and Death was never a Battle Royale kinda thing. All along it was a Belintar Bachelorette kind of reality TV show!

By the way, I had to think for a while about this... I was conflicted about it but in the end I agree with David that augments would work. First, you can augment with another skill (no need to always reach for Passions and Runes!). For example, a Merchant might augment "Manage Household" with, say, "Fast-Talk" to indicate that they spend a whole bunch of time bullshitting people that year! (but it does not mean that they bullshitted everybody...) By the way, the choice of skill used for augmenting is a great way for the GM and player to come up with a short little narrative, which sometimes leads to something meaningful for the campaign. Second, lots of people use some kind of "inspiration" for a fair amount of time throughout the year to stay focused or motivated. Someone fighting against climate change, helping at-risk-kids, or bringing medicine and clean water to isolated villages in developing countries will probably frequently remind themselves why they're doing this, and this will often be a Passion. A fisherman on a gruelling 4-months long trip in the arctic might think of his family to get through it. I mean, it's the stereotypical thing from war/action movies where Secondary Soldier Character #2 shows the heroes a picture of his kids ("This is who I'm doing it for! Only three more days in this six month tour! I can't wait to go home and hug them!") just a few scenes before the act 2 climax in which they die horribly.

Story happens. Depending on what made them fail to pay off their SoL: Failed occupation skill roll: Business dries up, their martial superior tells them they haven't been pulling their weight lately, they lost sheep or cows to diseases or raids and the chieftain is unhappy with them, etc. Make them play a scene or a short adventure to "fix" their problem, regain trust from their peers and superiors, or whatever. For instance, they need to seek out a risky business partnership that turns out to be more dangerous than they thought, or they have to volunteer for a shitty mercenary assignment, or they have to lead (and be responsible for) the next cattle raid. Maybe they get a small bonus next year out of this scene or adventure. Successful occupation skill roll but their personal wealth wasn't enough to pay the difference: Did they spend all the gains they acquired during the past few seasons of adventuring, not saving enough? People will talk behind their back, mentioning all the bling they wear or parties they throw or whatever, but "I hear that in his home everything's falling apart". Rival NPCs will take this opportunity to get ahead. Did they adventure a lot for their community, but didn't get much out of it, or gave everything away, explaining the low personal wealth? Have them appeal to the community leaders (Loyalty rolls and such) to get a loan from them. It shouldn't be too hard if they "donated too much" originally. If these story hooks don't sound interesting, either (1) I suck at coming up with story hooks or (2) it's not your thing and you can just skip the SoL rolls and assume everything's fine. Given the price of a used broadsword, though, it would be *really* hard to not find your missing 6L just lying on the ground after the first adventure of the year. It's impossible to not be able to pay your cult tithes since, IIRC, all tithing is done as a percentage of your income. As an initiate, you give 10% of your income to your temple, whatever that income was that year (not 10% of your "theoretical" income). So if you fail your yearly occupation roll and get only 30L out of 60L for a year, you only pay 3L -- not 6L. At least that's how I play it. What taxes? If you're playing under the Lunar Occupation, then you get a nasty visit from the Lunar Tax Collector. That's a great opportunity to kill him and his bodyguards, flee to Prax, awaken an ancient bovine-related spirit, raise an army to liberate Pavis, and so on. I hear cool people got started by killing a Lunar Tax Collector!

You're right about child mortality: that, Ransom, and Reputation are the only things that seem to be mechanically affected by the Standard of Living. There's no mention of the right to vote or not, so unless I missed something in the RQG material, you may be mixing things up with HQ. For instance, "cottar" isn't a term anymore AFAICT. Judging from the phrasing in RQG, you *have* to take from the personal wealth to maintain your Standard of Living. It *looks* to me like the worst thing about failing to maintain your Standard of Living is that it leads simply to losing your job. I assume that most players who fail one year will (1) train/research the appropriate skill to not fail next year, and (2) ask around for story opportunities/loans/adventures/etc. to rebuild their personal wealth. That's definitely a thing to be handled in story and not mechanics, but the mechanics are there to support the story.

Yeah, exactly, but even if you loose your Free status... so what? Like I said: am I missing something, or does it have very little mechanical consequences? Even maybe only minimal social consequences? Narratively speaking, there's a whole gradient between "daily bread, cheese, and eggs" and "sparse diet of root vegetables and gruel", or between a new set of clothes each year and minimal clothing. It's easy to add a "Struggling Free" level at, say, 30L/year, with "weekly bread, cheese and eggs" and "years old clothes that can pass for Free-level if well maintained".... or something.

Looking at the list of professions, people at 60L income will struggle to keep a "Free" standard of living, but anybody above that (there's indeed a lot of 80L+ occupations) should be fine most years assuming they have a good professional skill. There's also a bit of narration that can go into the "down years" when the PCs come up with only 54L out of a 60L base... I'd say they can pay up the difference by selling a few personal possessions (remove that total from your personal wealth) or getting a loan from their wealthy cousin (roll for Love (Family) or Loyalty (Clan) and owe a couple of favours, aka "adventure opportunities with less/no loot"). There's quite a big gap between "Poor (15L)" and "Free (60L)" so there's a lot of wiggle room IMHO. More importantly... what's the big deal? Am I missing something in the sense that falling down to "Poor" for a year isn't a big problem? It lowers your ransom (yay! time to get captured!) and affects the Child Survival roll, none of which look like big deals to me, but you also pocket a huge amount money as the difference. Narratively speaking you wear last year's clothes and sandals, and you eat less meat and fancy cheese, but none of that is terrible -- these are story hooks.

Issue 3 is out!

Episode 1 of the God Learners podcast is out! We take a trip to the Black Alynx (a pub located in the "bad part" of Jonstown) and interview Neil Gibson, author of LEGION, in addition to the usual geeking-out on Glorantha news. Please give it a listen and subscribe if you like it! (and remember, we also have some weekly news for you)

Note that S:KoH p71 has the same text for both the Moon and Chaos Rune, i.e. "...is taboo amongst the Orlanthi and, if awakened during the adulthood initiation rites, will almost certain result in you being killed by your own clan". In that sense, I doubt that it's OK to have a Chaos 60% Rune on your character sheet but tell the clan Storm Bulls "no, really, it's OK, I didn't join any Chaos cults so it's no awakened! I'm good! I swear!" 🙂 Therefore I interpret this as S:KoH saying that you can't have the Moon Rune on your (HeroQuest) character sheet. I think this whole "awakened/unawakened" business is irrelevant to the OP. S:KoH also says that the Air Rune is incompatible with the Moon Rune and Chaos Rune. Apparently you can't have both on your (still HeroQuest) character sheet. There's a mention that Lunars can do that, though, to some degree. So really, I would just ignore this whole part of S:KoH. It seems obvious that the authors changed their mind (just look at Vasana's Rune affinities), and this is yet one more thing where HQ's Glorantha differs from RQG's Glorantha. IMHO, it's a change for the better.

The what? (I can't spot what this is referring to)

This week's news are out!