Lordabdul

It's not that they're the future (which is a funny thing to say about a file format that has been around for 30 years). It's mostly that they're DTRPG's primary business. DTRPG could very well abandon POD in the future, or embrace it fully by automating their provisioning pipeline and offering POD automatically on all compatible titles, who knows. The most important value of PDFs IMHO is completely unrelated to making books, to the ability to search stuff or make backup copies or whatever (even though these things are great!). Nah, it's the many cities and places where real-estate prices are going crazy, and where the the price storing a book can quickly exceed the price of the book itself. Not everybody is a 50+ year old guy living in a large house in the midwest and whose kids left to university, leaving 500+ sq ft worth of gaming space to fill with any random sourcebook. When all you have needs to fit in 3 Ikea Billy bookcases, you need to make choices and PDFs are a great way to alleviate that problem.

Ah right, so it changed between RQ2 and RQ3 then. The RQ2 write-up that Cult Compendium has comes from Griffin Mountain (Foundchild) and Trollpak (Hunter).

Yeah most of us were going with the older Foundchild (and other hunter cults) write-ups from Cult Compendium and related sources. It seems like there was a change in RQG where only Master Hunters typically go to the Great Hunt, when it was really anybody (including lay members) before. So if you go by RQG, you would indeed need to ignore half of the recommendations given here.

As per Griffin Mountain, lay members of a hunter cult seem to be able to join in the Great Hunt. It seems pretty common for members of a party to be lay members of most of the other PCs' cults, so joining in the Great Hunt shouldn't be a problem there. That's were @David Scott's "30% in Bow" comes from by the way (it can be in any missile weapon). I like David's method of naming a prey and giving a bonus/penalty to the roll! The GM could use this modifier directly, combined with the type of success/failure, to rank PCs and NPCs at the end. Another idea that comes to mind is to know that there's a difference between in-game (character) activities and meta-game (player) spotlight. They could just make sure the players have enough to keep busy, even if their characters may be doing things on different scales. For instance, I imagine that participants in the Great Hunt might prepare for it. It's up to the GM whether the location of the Great Hunt is always the same every year or not, or if it's kept secret until the first day of the hunt or not, but even if it's not known until the first day, it's possible that some hunters study things for a couple days before heading into the wilderness. I'm thinking about chatting with the locals, consulting the nearby Lhankor Mhy archives, talking to local shamans and/or spirits, etc. This may give the hunter an edge in terms of navigating the terrain and tracking their prey. It may even let them know about some uncommon or unique beast roaming these particular hills! Something the other hunters may not even know about! The rules of the Great Hunt are only about going alone, but I suppose any preparation and preliminary investigation can be done with the help of their friends, so these other players still have all these other activities to do that will give the hunter player some good bonuses. Even if, in game, the characters are only spending a day or two doing that, while the hunter spends two weeks and a half hunting, in practice it's more than likely that each player will get the spotlight for 10 or 15 minutes, and everybody will feel included, hopefully.

I see, thanks! My understanding of the Covenant was pretty limited and based on the Guide which only has a short write-up that states that the animals "live off the plains". As often, things are a bit more complicated, but I guess the general statement applies to the main player-facing tribes. I really like the Morokanth as a way to introduce interesting questions about humanity, modern diets, the relationship to animals, etc... but there's a lot of details that don't quite make sense to me about their actual write-ups and magic. My Glorantha varies a bit on that front, but I'm looking forward to your possible future Prax Homeland Set and see your interpretation!

I'm confused... I thought the Survival Covenant was that: the mounts live off the plains, and the riders live off the mounts. So I thought herd-men were herbivores for the same reason the other mounts are herbivores, because that's how the Covenant works? Also, I thought the Morokanth would raid and steal other herd beasts for the same reason every other tribe does it: (1) it shows you're stronger, and (2) it gives you extra meat and pelts and horns and bones and such without having to take from your own herd. So am I misunderstanding something in both these things?

Nope, that was for all the Orlanth ones: Thunderous's spells repeat the elemental ones, for instance, to mention that they allow casting them at higher levels... I didn't double-count them. I did not however count the associated cult spells, you're right. But still, I wouldn't be worried about "too many spells" -- that's actually a weird thing to worry about 🙂 But hey as long as you're consistent, you can play those cult spirit spells any way you want -- I already gave some advice to play it the other way.

I still like the idea of the basic/common spell being more or less random or at the GM's discretion, but I agree that an extra roll of sorts could give the player a bit of agency and control to get a taste of what spending the POW point on a specific spell could give them. I would have gone with a Cult Lore skill roll instead of a Devotion roll, but I can see how Devotion can work too -- in fact, I think maybe it actually makes a bit more sense than Cult Lore! If I was a mean GM (it happens sometimes) I might even require 2 rolls: one to "push" the limits of the common spell (past the 3 points upper limit), and one to "ask nicely" for a specific spirit (instead of any random/GM-decided 4-point spirit.... although I guess any 4-point spirit is going to kick ass so the player would probably enjoy whatever ends up showing up)

You mean, as opposed to "commit a slot" for, say, Alter Creature, Bless Pregnancy, Call Founder, Matrix Creation, Oath, and other spells that I would only imagine using once every few adventures at most? Yes. Yes I would "commit a slot" to summoning super-powered elementals to kick ass. Also: There are not "slots" to commit. You can have as many Rune Spells as you want, given time. We are talking about a 4 point Rune Spell. This is obviously for Rune Lord type people. Now look at the Orlanth Thunderous cult: in its rulebook short write-up, it has 8 Rune Spells. So by the time you get 8 Rune Points in that cult, you've already got all the "normal" special spells... when you sacrifice for more Rune Points, you'll start looking into "special special" spells (and possibly a bit earlier than that if there are spells you don't care about). A typical Wind Lord or Storm Voice has a dozen Rune Points. So yeah, they might look into these obscure cult summonings. As you gain experience, you go higher into the mountains to seek deeper secrets!

Thanks! But hey tables are fun sometimes 😄 "Earth Pantheon Spirit Occurrences and Demographics Relationships to Ecosystems of Western Kethaela : A Study in Statistical Summoning" (by Vahrenis el-Dir & Ockert the Delicate, published 849 in the Journal of Immaterial Sciences, issue #78) @David Scott indicated that anything that has a write-up as a cult spirit would have a dedicated spell? So Thunder Brothers would have a "Summon Thunder Brother" spell? The text from RQG Bestiary p185 is: "Summoning such a Thunder Brother is a 4-point Summon Cult Spirit Rune spell of the Orlanth Thunderous cult." It's maybe misleading but I think it is semi-implying that this spell would be a *specific* version of the Summon Cult Spirit spell, like Summon Elemental. The reason I think that is that it clearly says that it's for the Orlanth Thunderous cult, and it doesn't make sense to restrict a particular usage of a common magic spell to a single cult -- so it has to be a specialized spell I think? Of course, the Orlanth Thunderous cult write-up in RQG doesn't have "Summon Thunder Brother" in its Rune magic list so this opens up a bit of a can of worm, although I would give it a pass for specific spirit summoning spells, since there could be anything the GM and players can think of in there.

I'm a bit suspicious about having to rely on an upcoming sourcebook being "exhausive" enough that it lets us know what spell to use on a given spirit based on its description (or lack thereof). As RQ text often says, the rules can't predict everything the players will throw at it, so they need to provide just enough info for the GM to make rulings. Would it be correct to say that, as a rule of thumb, any spirit that plays the role of an "unnamed cameo" can be called with Summon Cult Spirit, and anything more important or recurring than that probably has a dedicated spell? Also, do you play Summon Cult Spirit as a spirit-roulette thing where you don't necessarily know what you'll get, or do you allow players to request a particular spirit? For instance, you're in a forest and the Ernalda priestess asks for a cult spirit... does the GM randomly decide what it'll be between, say, a mushroom spirit, small mound spirit, or rabbit spirit? Or can the player say "I specifically want a rabbit spirit"?

But then you get back to the whole question of why would you bother specifically buying "Summon X Elemental" if you could do it already with common magic.

That's a great story, thanks for sharing! Very good improvisation on your part with these Divination visions! The mythic law of threes strikes again!

Recently David Scott clarified a few things about ransoms that I had missed or forgotten from RQG. First, there are two types of ransoms: If you have been captured and someone is ransoming you, they are asking you to pay up. As in: you pay your own ransom, or find someone who will pay it for you. Your captors don't have all day to call everybody in your contacts list -- that's your job as the captive! 🙂 If you have killed or severely maimed somebody, that NPC's family/clan/temple/guild/etc might ask for compensation. This is another form of ransom which is different. In this case, the culprit (as opposed to the victim/captive in the first case) is the one paying. RQG p64 describes option 2 for most of its boxed text, except for the very last sentence which mentions option 1. RQG p407 describes option 1 in more detail. It explains that most captives pay their ransom themselves because they have set aside some funds to that effect. They keep these funds in a "safe" place such as their "home temple" (which @Joerg then picked up to start musing about how many ransoms are stored at a temple, whether that increases the temple's cash liquidity, and so on 😉 ). So if the adventurers get ransomed, they just need to send someone to pick that money up. However, if they don't have any/enough funds set aside, they might have to indeed call upon their family or community -- generally this includes a Passion roll (Love, Loyalty, etc.) and comes with a life debt towards this group of people... which can be some interesting narrative hook in its own right. Note that Rune-level people and Shamans would pretty much automatically have their temple or community pay their ransom, that comes with the already existing heavy duty of these titles. For more info see Community Support p235, Rune Priests/Lords/Shamans p276, p280, p359, and some of the fluff text from Vasana on p166. Conclusion: those players better have some pile of money set aside to pay the ducks and keep this embarrassing episode under wraps. If not, they will indeed have to drag their patron or community or cult into it (which would require successful Passion rolls... statistically one of them will fail). But asking for an advance from their employer might be easy to obtain -- they might end up working for free for a lot longer than it would have taken to repay the ransoms though. Interest is a bitch and their employer probably sees a good opportunity when it presents itself.

Yet you still managed to finish this month's issue in time! Yay, congrats! 😄

I don't think you're missing anything. It's just easier to do one roll every year, than have up to 6 different downtime sub-systems each with its own set of season-appropriate rolls. It's fairly easy to split the Sacred Time rolls and results apart, and do bits here and there after each season, though, in case you need more granularity. I do like crunchy granularity. Have you ever been on the internet? Or on discussion board for seriously crunchy systems? 😄 Anyway I haven't had to do the yearly family rolls yet but I think I would proceed as follows for the Children roll if/when I have to: If there's no children, great, no worries. If there's a child: Was the child birthed by an NPC partner of the PC? Great, no worries. Is the PC supposed to birth the child? Look at the past year's adventures. Was there enough free time to do that? If so, great, no worries. Has the party NOT already used the "didn't know I was pregnant" thing? And does it fit the PC's personality and nature? If so, great, the birth was a surprise. Or maybe some divine or spirit conception thing that requires further investigation. Did the party already used the "didn't know I was pregnant" thing on another PC, and the coincidence of it happening to this PC feels like too much? Or does it not fit the PC's personality and nature? Well, the PC is pregnant now and the child will be born next year. Sprinkle a bit of house scenes, potential drama if the kid was conceived when the PC was away from home, and start thinking about how to introduce David Bowie to your campaign.

Indeed, and that's one of the reasons why I don't let players decide on the spirit type when they use the generic Summon Cult Spirit spell. I was however pointing at the few little changes you need to make for those who do allow it.

This comes just after "Summon Elemental is a specific example of this spell but many other variations exist. For example, Chalana Arroy cultists..." so my reading was that "Summon Healing Spirit" was another example of a "specific spell" just like "Summon Elemental", i.e. a separate spell you have to take and sacrifice POW for. But the rules are vague enough that you can read it both ways indeed. I think it works out either way as long as the GM is consistent about what is an actual spell and what is just a specialization of the same spell, so that players don't sacrifice POW for something they already have. In this particular reading, I would give "Summon Elemental" as common magic, for instance, so you never need to "buy" it.

Hah interesting, the wording in RBoM is different:

Oh yeah definitely. Like I said, I love love love some good cartography. So if we could get both a detailed map and some overview illustrations, that would be gold. Maybe Chaosium people can share what kind of thought process goes into these decisions, but my uneducated guess is that they make a compromise to keep art budgets sustainable and have a couple more pages to fill with text. I think they did good picking the overview option as the one to keep.

Which part of the text makes you lean that way?

I have struggled to understand the differences between these spells too and my conclusion so far is: "Summon Cult Spirit" just summons any random cult spirit. It could be an elemental, it could be an animal spirit, it could be a priest from a few generations ago, a hero from the Second Age, or whatever else the GM thinks would be funny, impressive, interesting, or whatever. "Summon Elemental" specifically gets you an elemental, and eliminates the uncertainty of the generic spell. Similarly specialized spells summon specific spirits (amazing alliteration batman!). Under this interpretation, it means that Chalana Arroy would have a specific "Summon Healing Spirit" spell in addition to the common "Summon Cult Spirit" spell (and this specific version would be a 1-point spell, as told in RQG p342). The GM can have fun with the generic summoning spell, and should feel free to get creative with the rules. For instance, the GM may ask for a Worship or Cult Lore skill roll before summoning, along with a few extra seconds or minutes of summoning time, in case the player wants to pick and choose what kind of spirit they'll get (instead of leaving that up to the GM) without having access to the corresponding specialized spell.

I'm not even sure that there is these days... I know that the brainstorming sketches show a street back there, but if I hadn't seen those sketches, and only had this new isometric map as a reference, I frankly would just say that the Issaries Hill connects with the city wall, and that there's not much hidden from view. If you extrapolate from perspective, you'll see there's not much room... ...but now that write that, it occurs to me that what I'd do is have this street be very narrow and almost always in the shadows, stuck between the cliff of the Issaries hill and the wall. Sounds like a perfect place for lots of small dodgy shops that sell unsavoury and illegal stuff. "Shadowlane" or whatever seems like a super obvious/on-the-nose choice for this street 😄 Generally speaking, I find these isometric maps really great. I don't need a tactical or precise urban zoning map for the cities -- I need a map that gives me a good idea of what the city is like. Don't get me wrong, I also love super precise maps! (one reason I love Harn on a theoretical level) But the isometric map conveys a lot more "flavour" stuff such as the scale of buildings and hills and walls, and doubles as an illustration that shows what the place looks like. Sure, that sacrifices knowing exactly what alley goes where and so on, but Glorantha was never a precise cartographic exercise anyway. The French Glorantha line has an exclusive sourcebook on the Dundealos, which means it has a write-up of Swenville. The map can be seen on Twitter and you can see that it's a top-down map like some of you are requesting... I don't know about you, but for all the wonderful cartographic work that Thomas did here, I find the isometric map of Jonstown, Apple Lane, and Boldhome to be more efficient at helping me picture what these places look like. I get little sense of scale about Swenville here. I can only get that from other illustrations, such as this one which I think is OK to share because IIRC it was also shared on social media: Now all of a sudden I can see how impressive these walls are, and how tall that big staircase is! I'm happy to sacrifice mapping precision and completeness for more flavour because, in practice, as a GM, I need to describe these places as living breathing cities and hamlets -- I don't need to measure exactly how many meters to the next intersection.

Oh that's interesting! Especially because it's a map that keeps singling out North Street as the only named street, just like the RQ3 map! Which implies that it's indeed the more important street! I'm not completely crazy! Although I do use a lot of exclamation points! (note that I originally interpreted North Street as the street that goes up the map and exits the frame at the top, but based on the old RQ2 map, I get the feeling that in fact North and South Streets are just the two halves of the oval around Apple Lane, i.e. North Street goes past the thane manor and the Uleria temple and the weaponmaster's hall, and South Street goes past the stables, the tin inn, gringle's pawnshop, and the temple to all deities... which would invalidate my theory... oh well, it's not very important which way is which anyway as long as you're consistent)

Thanks for making a new topic David! I refrained from posting in the other thread to keep the derailing to a minimum... but I have possibly similar questions as Joerg, in the sense that I'm wondering what's the "rule of thumb" to figure out if something has/is caused by a spirit, or if it's just some mundane thing. We know diseases are virtually all caused by spirits. But some forms of madness (and some extreme passions) can also be caused by spirits. IIRC some old HW-era books even stated that the fermentation of beer was also caused by spirits... so frankly it sounds to me that anything can be caused by a spirit? So the "rule of thumb" is really just "do you need it for an adventure?".