Lordabdul

The Journal of Runic Studies 92 is out! BRP returns, human sacrifice, cult relationships, ancient diet, fun with evolutionary biology, and more!

On 3/14/2023 at 12:43 PM, jajagappa said:

I like the collection of "Gloranthan sock art" 😉 

haha right, I fixed it, but I would really like someone to get on an actual collection of Gloranthan sock styles 😄

The Journal of Runic Studies 90 is out! Our latest podcast episode, the gorgeous cover of the Lightbringers cult book, Jonstown Compendium releases, old HeroWars terms that won't die, Spanish blogging, ancient rock tombs, and more!

The Journal of Runic Studies 89 is out! A deep dive into the recently announced Cults of RuneQuest, a look at the Foundry and Fantasy Grounds modules for RuneQuest, exploring the God Time, a manga campaign log, and more!

In this episode of the Glorantha Initiation series we had the absolute pleasure of talking to Lee O'Connor, an illustrator and mythology nerd. We talk about Irish folklore, British pubs, hacking game systems, and more!

The Journal of Runic Studies 88 is out! Erratas, Greg Stafford's D&D copy, the life of Arkat, a Glorantha book club, Lunar voodoo dolls, the Colossus of Constantine recreated, Roman sex toys, and more!

The Journal of Runic Studies 87 is out! Imther at the edge of the empire, events and auction at ChaosiumCon, city gods and patron deities, an abridged history of the big rubble, RuneQuest starter set reviews, and more!

@Joerg and I welcome Harald Smith to the podcast  @jajagappa as we talk about his recent Jonstown Compendium book "Edge of Empire", focused on the Lunar province of Imther. We also discuss cheeses, in-world documents, dwarf-speak, maps, and more!

9 hours ago, Agentorange said:

Could that work for your spirit cult ?

I'm not sure it would work for my specific case, but in the general case of spirit cults, yeah it's definitely an option. The great thing with spirits is that they can be anything, with any sort of powers, abilities, demands, and so on.

1 hour ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Does initiate of your spirit cult have access to all Orlanth+Thunderous rune spells ?

That's a good way to look at it actually, thanks. From that perspective, my game's spirit is definitely *related* to Orlanth, but is not an Orlanth cult spirit. So clearly an associated cult (for dedicated worshippers), or a subservient cult like Heler (with Orlanth worshippers getting a chance of getting that spirit's special magic at that one local Orlanth temple).

On 1/28/2023 at 1:48 AM, David Scott said:

Generally speaking, a spirit cult teaches a single Rune magic or Spirit spell, or teaches a specific skill.

On a more on-topic note, my players just recently started a new Spirit Cult for a previously forgotten spirit. It will likely be as a sub-cult or associated cult of Orlanth Thunderous... I'm not sure how to pick between those two, I assume it's generally "associated"?

I'm also wondering how to expose that spirit's main power, as spirit magic or as a Rune spell. The two magic systems are obviously very different so the choice here matters a lot. From the few examples available so far, it looks like doing it as a Rune spell is more common. I guess it makes sense, since it gives a reason for people to come back and worship the spirit some more to regain the one or two Rune points they have with it... but of course it goes back to the question of sub-cult vs associated since that drives whether the Rune Points pool are common with the main cult or not...

4 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

What you define as "the rules" is exactly what I define as "not the rules". 🙂

I think he was just talking about people who had read the previous editions of the rules. They're still rules...

The whole thing about the Sleep spell in RQG is made even more muddy by the fact that both The Smoking Ruin and The Pegasus Plateau have a handful of NPCs with the Sleep spell, and none of them are Chalana Arroy initiates. Then again, RQG specifically says (page 390, emphasis mine):

The cost of learning a spell is typically 50 L for common spells, more for rarer spells or cult secrets.

So it sounds like "cult secret" is really a marketing term for "premium spell" 😄  I don't know how strict the wording will be in the Cults books around cult secrets or the Sleep spell specifically, but on a purely world-building note, it never seemed feasible to me to keep a spell like Sleep entirely restricted to the Chalana Arroy cult... at least not unless CA gained spirits of reprisal that would kill anybody very fast to contain any leak. So it makes sense to me that after more than a millennium of people being people, the Sleep spell would have spread outside of the CA cult, even if it's only to "trusted" people.

On 2/2/2023 at 10:25 PM, kalidor said:

That it's what I read about. Mastery rune is key for Heroquesting and powers you get from it. There is a new character sheet just for that. CHA, POW, passions, Runes and mastery rune plus techniques. 

This character sheet is here, in sketch form.  More hints here and here. Follow the links in the article to Bryon's recording of the game and you'll hear Jeff explain the heroquesting rules (which were still a work-in-progress at the time so there might be tweaks by the time they are published). PM me if you want my notes.

13 hours ago, jajagappa said:

I believe there wsa one text indicating they probably used a Guided Teleport (Rune Magic) or similar Orlanthi magic (e.g. using the winds). It was Broyan and his immediate companions, so all heroquesters.

The newer write-up (RQG Glorantha Bestiary) adds that, thanks to its many eyes, it can never be surprised, as it can see all around, including in both the Spirit Plane and the Hero Plane.

Since Broyan and his friends are all heroquesters, as you say, they might have any kind of powerful gifts and magic abilities that aren't in the rules or even are rules breaking. You don't even need to do a dangerous heroquest that provides a "Get In The Crimson Bat's Blind Spot" ability. You just need to find a workaround. For instance, it says "the Bat can never be surprised" as in "it can't be ambushed"... So maybe your ability is a magical disguise. The Bat sees you teleporting or flying on its back, but it thinks "oh hey that's Bob, my worshipper who takes care of scratching that patch of itchy skin I've got near my left shoulder, nice of him to drop by". But then, boom!, Bob drives a magical blade through the bat's skull.

The Journal of Runic Studies 85 is out! A big update on the cults books, Escalation! art, Bud explains the Uz, RuneQuest sorcery, and more!

22 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

Re: the lost legions, the Netflix show Barbarians is all about them! And my notes on Tarndisi’s slaughter-grove in the back of The Duel at Dangerford were inspired by Joerg’s pagan ancestors’ excesses.

Oh good to know! Another show to add to the ever-growing pile 😄  Thanks!

The Journal of Runic Studies 84 is out! Bridgett's clandestine basement operation, rumours of RuneQuest releases, big overlaid maps of Glorantha, useless Lunar javelins, Augustus' lost legions, and more!

My half-assed theory is that the statue's left hand is missing (from that P:GTA map above, it looks severed at the wrist to me). So the hand, and whatever it was holding, might have been where the North Quarry is. That's where people started, because somehow the statue fell with something very very cool in its left hand. But it's now gone, or buried, or underwater, somewhere nearby.

On 1/13/2023 at 3:43 PM, Erick Eckberg said:

How is Death necessarily honorable?  Death is uncaring of such human inventions.  Why would the Humakt cult put such a huge emphasis on honor?

IMG (and as far as I understand from the canon), Humakt is about making Death meaningful. The cult is big on "honour" (whatever that is) because it doesn't like unnecessary death (again, whatever that means). My interpretation is that Humakt regrets giving Death to Orlanthi, because he then proceeded to kill Yelm and fuck up the cosmos for everybody. So wielding Death is a big responsibility, and you can't be a jerk storm-bro about it.

Now, a few notes about implementing all this in a RuneQuest game specifically:

- Not every combat is to the death. Not every NPC will fight until they hit 0 HP. If a GM plays it like this, they effectively reduce any conflict to "one side has to die for the other to win". That shouldn't be the case, and teaches players bad habits. People lose hope, get scared, change their mind, etc. When an NPC goes below half or a third of their HP, or get one or two limbs disabled, I usually have them surrender or flee or whatever (unless they're zombies or particularly fanatic or whatever). If I'm feeling fancy I roll a D100 for my NPCs under a stock Loyalty/Devotion Passion to see if their heart is still in it. I don't get fancy too much. At this point, killing someone who surrenders, or shooting them in the back as they flee, is obviously dishonourable. Humakt will not be happy. But bottom line: you can avoid all metaphysical discussions about killing NPCs if NPCs don't get killed often.

- Instead of trying to come up with hard rules for honour, go with the "we know it when we see it" rule, aka the "table check" rule. Go around the table and see what players think about it. In my experience, players can be harder on themselves than I will ever be!  The main problem I have is to remember to do it, that is I often forget to check for high Runes/Passions and bring it in play. Thankfully my players often mention it anyway.

- Let the player decide what kind of honour they want their cult to be about. Take notes and whatever is honourable for them is honourable for NPCs.

- As Nick says, it's not all black and white. Just become something isn't honourable doesn't mean it's dishonourable. There's nothing honourable about eating apples or kicking someone in the nuts. Doesn't mean it's dishonourable either.

- Let the player do dishonourable things! Sometimes there are other stronger reasons to do something. That's why RQ characters have multiple Passions. That bandit ambushed and killed your brother, and you can do the same right now? Well if you have Love Family 90%, that's totally understandable. That's what opposed rolls between Passions are for (if you want), or, you know, just do it and lose a few points in Honour. That's part of the character's arc, it's great!  Personally, I either let the player change their mind, or I make them roll for that Passions: if they fail, good job, they can do the thing without feeling bad! If they succeed, they immediately lose points in it while doing the thing. I let them negatively augment the roll, too (so for instance using Love Family to get a penalty to Honour).

On 1/14/2023 at 6:00 PM, General Confusion said:

I personally can't see how Ritual Practices could apply to the combat with the Bad Man

Ritual Practice, among other things, lets you augment a Magic skill. Spirit Combat is a Magic skill so I would personally allow augmenting one Spirit Combat roll (only one, not the whole combat). It's probably better to augment the Spirit Dance skill, though, as special/crit gives you a more powerful fetch, and that's your only chance at that.

It's also possible that the whole Bad Man fight is meant to give you taboos, and that getting additional abilities is only for a select few. Nobody said it was a fair fight. In fact, there are barely ever any fair fights in RuneQuest.

5 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

I split the action in two

That's what I would do too. Because obviously as @Barak Shathur said, it's weird that charging an adversary puts you at a disadvantage. I *want* my players to charge my NPCs 😄

Of note, Larry can also cast spells while charging, so both Larry and Stevie can begin the melee magically buffed. If I'm playing theatre of the mind (which we do for half of the combats on average), I don't even bother counting distance, and just say "charging for one round, get in melee range the second round" so that we can simply use the weapon SRs directly without any added crunch.