Lordabdul

The new books are not in the Canadian warehouse yet (you can see the list of flags on the item's page)... but I looked at some items that are there, like the RQG rulebook, and the shipping rate is the same as shipping something from the US, so I'm a bit confused? (FYI, this is for shipping to BC, which may be on the other side of the continent from where the Canadian warehouse is, which I suppose is somewhere in Ontario)

I'm not sure it's possible to buy the PDF from anywhere else.... but yes, this is correct. @Lee Rich look for an email from Chaosium with the subject "The Smoking Ruin is here!", it contains the coupon at the bottom. I'm going to wait for the Pegasus Plateau and grab a handful of books in one go (including some recent releases for Call of Cthulhu).

I love that this dude has a bunch of active spells on him with season-long extensions (or more). In comparison, Urvantan from The Smoking Ruin looks less well prepared. By the way, inscribed spells can still be further manipulated upon casting, right?

Ah thanks! So they're indeed more from Tarshite origin as I suspected, it seems. I'm surprised to see Humakt as a notable minor cult, and not Elmal or Yelmalio. Does that mean they're using Humakti magic to fight trolls, instead of Sun magic? I was wondering about that because WF#15 also mentions they paint their shield and body black to better fight in the dark, and that felt like quite the opposite to what Sun-worshippers would do, which left me scratching my head as to what kind of special magic they were using. I guess if they're using Death-god magic, the black paint makes sense.

I'm not totally sure whether the tribe classification in there is still canon, but note that there's really not much about it. Plus, I'm suspecting that the Bachad tribe was incorrectly categorized as "Dark Orlanthi" like the Torkani. I think they're most probably Tarshite or Earth Tarsh.... they couldn't be Dark Orlanthi when they're also listed as being renowned troll-killers who have special magic for that.

Yep I agree with the first half. As for the second half (learning & forgetting), I think the "memory palace" technique is well suited for explaining it. I'm not sure why you think it's not hard enough to swap your spell slots though: 3 hours and a Meditate roll that you could fail? That's pretty harsh IMHO, and it requires the whole party of PCs to effectively come to a stop. In practice, it's not very far for the usual trope of having to pick your spells for the day every morning. ....which is why (1) sorcerers should be older characters (and not "zeroes" or beginners) and (2) a true sorcerer-centric campaign should, IMHO, explore things like the "troupe play" approach of Ars Magica, or other uncommon things (one game a year instead of one game a season?). You really can't have it both: either sorcerers are recluses who spend 80% of their time researching and improving their magic... or.... they don't. But I'm not interested in a 3rd magic system that would be kinda like the other 2 but with fancy customization... a truly different system means different gameplay too.

That last one is basically how Ars Magica works. A combination of both is how the main GURPS Magic works... which I like because while it's a bit crunchier, it looks more like "magic as music", where you can work on, say, your different guitar techniques to get better at playing in general, but you can also learn a specific song (spell) really well. Yes Hit me up in private if you want to bounce ideas off someone, or even need help. I love geeking out on magic systems (and gaming mechanics in general, in fact). Yes, I would definitely want a strong incentive, if not flat-out limitations (as per RAW), that result in sorcerers getting specialized in one or other flavour of magic.

Yeah I've often drawn the parallel with the cyberpunk genre... Besides what you mentioned (using the shaman/netrunner for short investigation/scouting scenes), another technique is to make sure there's action going on at both level: the PCs are shooting incoming killer robots while the netrunner is trying to disable the AI that controls them. In RQ, the PCs are fighting, err, some possessed Lunar soldiers while the shaman is fighting the spirit that protects the magic item they need to break off the possession, or whatever.

Ah I understand now -- the problem isn't that there's a limit to the number of spells you can remember, or that there's a limit to the amount of manipulation you can do in your head... the problem is that those 2 limits are combined. So you have to choose between knowing a lot of spells that you have to cast at low power, or knowing a couple spells that you can buff up. Gotcha. Yes, I agree that it's pretty lame. A simple house rule would be to just separate the 2: you have Memory INT and Manipulation INT, both based on INT (probably INT minus spirit magic), and those are your two limits. The RQG sorcery system is already a skill-based system. The "problem" (if any) is more that it's a skill-based system with a few peculiar (to me) properties: As previously mentioned, a balancing act between how many skills you know and how complicated your usage of that skill can get. Usually, trying to use a skill in more elaborate ways is represented with penalties and other situational modifiers. It's a flat system. That is, regardless of how awesome you are in sorcery, any new spell starts at an abysmal score. A hierarchical system where, for example, Runes/Techniques are percentage scores themselves would let you have a mechanic where newly learned spells can start higher if they are "in your wheelhouse". The precedent for that is the Language Tree equivalency for language skills, or the Weapon Types equivalency for related weapons. It can eventually get your character in a corner that you don't like. That is: once you've mastered a Rune or Technique, you can't unlearn it, so after bad choices you might end up with a setup you don't like. If, again, Runes/Techniques were instead percentage scores that, say, balanced each other or summed to a maximum (a bit like Form/Power Rune affinities), then you could, if needed, re-adjust your character by investing in some other Runes/Techniques and letting other ones decrease to represent that you're letting yourself forget them... (the balancing/total could actually be based on INT too). I think the RQG Sorcery rules look "good enough", but I'm pretty sure I'll use a bunch of house rules if I ever have sorcerers in my group.... or... you know... go back to this ridiculous project of GURPS: Glorantha (GURPS has a couple of very good skill-based magic systems IMHO). I also need to look back more at Ars Magica, even maybe GM it a few times. It will probably give some good insights.

No apologies necessary, it's great to see the various nuances of people's answers. Thanks for the precise references to the books too.... I wonder if a few of us could team up for a Spirit-related JC item that clears all this up, offers practical examples, adventure seeds, optional rules, varied interpretations of how to picture the Spirit World, etc.... "Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Spirits But Were Afraid To Ask (Because Shamans Are Weird And Scary)"

AFAICT Jeff said that there were no books planned for HeroQuest: Glorantha. I assume all of the HeroQuest resources are allocated to QuestWorlds at the moment.

Yeah, there are crunchy rules that are only there for tactical combat's sake, for people who want to effectively play a wargame, while some other crunchy rules are there to help create more story twists and narrative opportunities. Sometimes, in the hands of 2 different GMs, the same set of rules might end up more firmly in one or the other category, and that's often how players might get put off with that particular set of rules... and you don't understand because you had the other type of experience.

As I understand, that's supported by the RQG rules ("Inscribing Spells"), and if I remember correctly there are further rules for actual grimoires coming up in the GM guide or some other upcoming book. Are you still using some house rules in RQG right now or did you revert back to RAW for now? Yeah I think either way you need some kind of limit -- whether it's INT, or INT-minus-spirit-magic, or INT-minus-spirit-magic-and-sorcery depends on how out-of-the-box powerful you want sorcerers to be. Me, I like my sorcerers to be like alchemists and scientists, travelling with scrolls and trinkets in their pockets, rings on their fingers, etc... all with inscribed spells that took years to grow and grow in their labs and fancy towers, until now they can blast you away by touching one of their necklaces. A smaller Free INT gives an incentive to do that, although what sucks is that it costs POW and so far there aren't a lot of ways to get a POW gain roll when you're a pure sorcerer (it's OK for Lankhor Mhy sorcerers though since they get normal worship... but we don't have rules yet for the Invisible God and other stuff like that). Basically, Ars Magica was inspired by RQ and it's only fair to return the favour decades later. How does the Free INT mechanic not accurately represent Gloranthan sorcery in your opinion?

As far as I can tell from a quick check in both RQ2 and RQ3, only the Lance ever benefited from the mount's Db in combat in those rules too.

Yep, agreed, that's more or less how I picture it. But for instance to get to those landmarks that you can see in the Spirit World (like Kero Fin or Starfire Ridges, as you say), you would potentially take different paths than the path you'd take in the Spirit World. The path might be longer or shorter, and you might get lost on the way. I see it a bit like hyperspace between solar systems and other "known locations", in a some way. You might also see landmarks that don't seem to have any correspondence in the Mundane World, like your Swamp of the Vough, yeah. I think one difference is that when discorporate PCs start travelling in the Spirit World, I might take them more quickly (but gradually) into a completely different universe, where there's less and less correlation with the Mundane World, until you grab onto a vortex or other landmark to help you come "back down" nearer to the Mundane World. Yes, agreed -- you don't see the building itself unless it has some significance for the Spirit World. IMO there's a difference between mundane people's spirit being visible to the Spirit World, and that spirit being easy to locate or get to. Again, to me, travelling in the Spirit World is different from travelling in the Mundane World: the two don't match one-to-one at all. Most of the time the spirits in the Spirit World just travel across this "higher dimension" than ours and don't see our spirits at all as a result. They would have to "come down", "near" the Mundane Plane, to perceive our spirit (at which point they can choose to become visible to attack us or something). But "coming down" requires figuring where you are in the Spirit World in relation to the Mundane World. To draw a parallel with hyperspace again, it's like navigating at hyperspeed without a functional navigation computer: you're flying around blind and if you stop and exit hyperspeed, who knows where you'll show up in the universe. Sure you might come out where there's a solar system with people in it (if you're lucky... in most cases, you end up nowhere), but that would be random people. If you want to attack people randomly that's fine, but if you're looking for someone or something specifically, that doesn't work. So in that sense, Axis Mundi and other such spells are acting like a navigation computer, and it lets the spirits "come down" from the higher dimensions of the Spirit World, near the Mundane World, in the specific place they are looking for (instead of something random). As you said, it's like a lighthouse of some kind. Yep so while they're "near" the Mundane World they can travel (even while invisible) by "staying low". I think that it takes effort and they tend to get sucked "back up" and away from the Mundane World, unless they use a Visibility spell or other thing. I haven't quite defined that. But the rulebook does mention something along those lines, that you get slowly sucked into the outer regions. Like I said, IMG the spirits that manage to "come down" near the Mundane Plane (or a discorporated PC that is "staying low") would see the spirit part of a physical being. That's this "spiritual aura" you're talking about. You can sense the POW of the person (maybe, based on the rules for this). Note that this offers very limited scouting because someone's spirit is often different from they physical form. You don't "see the person" as in "you see the physical person the same way another physical person would see them". Maybe that's the part I didn't explain correctly. So for example IMG a PC might discorporate a 100m away from a stone tower. Once discorporated, she navigates in the same direction in the Spirit World, half blindly because there might not be any obvious correlation with the hills around the stone tower there. But she can see 5 spirits huddled together there -- she can assume that's a bunch of NPCs in the tower (but maybe not! It might be 5 little dryads living in the bush next to it!). But seeing their spirits doesn't tell her much: she can't see what weapons or armour they have because their spirits aren't representative of that (one NPC might appear as a child version of himself, another NPC might be a mighty warrior when he's really far from that, another NPC's spirit might look like a very blurry animal, etc...). Also, the stone tower might have a couple of spirits tied to it, and there are really only 3 NPCs out of the 5 spirits she can see... etc. Anyway that's how I'm playing it so far, but of course I might change my mind as I go...

"Interact" to me means "talk to them or attack them", not "spying on them from afar". I wouldn't call looking at people walk down the street "interacting with them". I'm fine with your interpretation of the Spirit World but like I said before, I think spirits needs to be able to "see" people otherwise some practical things don't make sense to me.

I'm going to post what I posted on Facebook for discussion's sake, and then compare notes with Harald: 1) Spirits are typically invisible, but some spirits can become visible at will. Others, especially very old ones, only exist in the Spirit World and never become visible. 2) Yes. A mortal is a body plus a spirit. Discorporation is detaching your spirit from your body. 3) Yes. Unlike other spirits like dryads or nymphs, a ghost is specifically the spirit of a deceased mortal, and is often tied to ("haunting") a place or object somehow. 4) I'm gonna say yes. 5) Also yes. 6) Probably yes, if you beat it in Spirit Combat? Also, see the nasty Death Binding spell that Tusk Riders have in the RQ Bestiary. 7) Binding a spirit to an object requires sacrificing POW based on how many stats the spirit has. Binding a spirit to a crystal doesn't require that so it's much easier. 😎 No it's bound to the object... it's stuck in there. If it could discoporate it would escape in the Spirit World. 9) That varies from GM to GM I think. I allow it but remember that a discorporate PC can only see the Spirit World: it might see the spirit of NPCs (guards, etc.) but might also see any ghosts or other spirits haunting the place. It wouldn't see if there are any undead armies in there. Also, the farther you go from your body, the less correlation there is between the Spirit World and the Mundane World, so you'd have to get close to the building you want to scout, leaving your body defenseless to physical harm or any evil spirits looking for an easy possession. 10) Same as above, but with less/different risks. 11) Remember that spirits aren't just invisible ghosts who wander around the world. They really exist in a different world (the Spirit World) but can occasionally cross over. When you move in the Spirit World, you move along a different set of dimensions. A spirit might move around "a bit" while being visible before attacking someone in Spirit Combat, but that's pretty much it. Yes, it's vague. Probably on purpose. 12) An Axis Mundi is effectively a spirit sanctuary. Spirits who don't know how to make themselves visible can do so here, can "find" this sanctuary more easily than other places in the Mundane and Spirit World, and will be a lot more docile when they arrive. It's useful for dealing ancestor spirits without running the risk of evil spirits or aggressive ancestor ghosts crashing the party. 13) Spirits can possess a PC, and will probably try to do that once in a while, because it's a fun kind of danger to throw are your players. When possessed, what happens with the PC's spirit depends on the type of possession. With a dominant possession, the PC's spirit is trapped and crushed under the evil spirit. The PC effectively becomes an NPC (unless the player moves on to play the evil spirit!). With covert possession, the PC's spirit is still in control of the body, but that control is obviously or secretly altered (disease, madness, etc.) Now let's see where we differ: I answered "yes" here since, well, if it looks like a spirit and behaves like a spirit, then it's a... duck? Errr, a spirit I mean. The fact that it's a spirit that still has a body waiting for it back on the Mundane Plane doesn't make it any less of a spirit to me. I replied "yes" here because I considered that the enchantment of the object was part of the binding ritual (it's called a "binding enchantment" after all!). But you're right that technically it's 2 spells, so your answer is more correct. Also as above, your answer is more correct. That's a good answer -- ultimately I think we more or less agree here. I would however tend to make the immediate surroundings of the Spirit World (near where the PC discorporated) more or less recognizable (in terms of their correlation with the Mundane World) if you squint hard and tilt your head, so to speak. You wouldn't see the trees or buildings or other physical features per se (unless they have a spirit themselves), but you might see the shape of the hill from its nature spirits, and you might see the buildings from the grouped people's spirits there. The main thing, here, is that to me all the physical beings in the Mundane World have their spirits visible to the spirits on the Spirit Plane. The reasons for this are two-fold: There's a rule somewhere that specifies how "far" you can perceive spirits of a certain POW level, which indicates to me there's a bit of a correlation between the two. Many spirits (madness, disease, etc...) must be able to see people's spirits or auras or whatever in order to be able to attack and possess them. Actually, any spirit needs to be able to perceive people in the Mundane World otherwise half the time they would become visible randomly in the wrong place, turned the wrong way, etc. Imagine if you disturbed some ancient enchanted relic and suddenly the guardian spirit appears, his back turned to you: "WHO DISTURBS THE.... errr... <turns around> oh, you're here. Ahem, where was I? Oh yes... WHO DISTURBS THE SPIRIT OF KING BUNGALOR?" But I'm fine having slightly differing interpretations of the Spirit World -- I think we're in the same ballpark there. Ah I was certain I had seen a rule like this somewhere but I was looking the RQG rulebook. Thanks! Like I said in my answer, I use this only for moving around the battlemat during a battle, but not for anything farther -- most likely spirits travel in the Spirit World and not in the Mundane World for anything that doesn't require interacting with mortals.... although I guess it could be possible to have a visible discorporate spirit tag along with you on a long hike? To me that would require moving while being visible in the Mundane World. Moving while being discorporate means you move along those "other" dimensions of the Spirit World, and therefore not where you want in this case. Thanks!

Hello tribe! We at Wind Words have been pretty busy lately, with the announcement of our very first Gloranthan Talent Show, but that’s not all! We are also announcing a weekly Gloranthan newsletter! Wind Whispers will go out every Godday (that’s Sunday for you mundane people) and will feature all the Glorantha-related news stories that we have randomly encountered during the week… the first issue is now out and you can check it out on our website! You can also choose to sacrifice some Magic Points to our temple in order to have these news delivered directly to you, automatically, on the digital winds of the cosmic, err, Arachne Solara’s web… or something: Email: subscribe here and get all these news in your inbox! RSS feed: get Wind Whispers and more from us in your news reader app! We hope you’ll learn a thing or two -- feel free to give us feedback, and to share it wide!

You mean that our recording of Pelorian Rhapsody's introduction for Episode 4 of Wind Words doesn't qualify as "professionally recorded"? I'm HURT 😅😂

Oooh interesting, now I may have to look into this Kitori business since they might walk by (or near) my Bachad tribe home-base... I'm wondering how these troll caravans travel through Sartar by the way? I assume they need extremely diplomatic Argan-Argrar priests in the front, take detours to avoid Sun Domes and Heortling clans that are notoriously anti-Darkness, and whenever possible travel under mountain ranges where existing troll tunnel networks are navigable?

Huh, good point!

Haha yes I've thought the same thing many times I'm not. FWIW that was my initial reading of the rules. When the whole debate started around it and people argued otherwise, I shrugged and figured oh I must have been mistaken. I think I might be immune to a couple of the weird things in the rules because RQG was the first RQ ruleset I was exposed to, so I have no precedent or bias with any of this. I do agree however that the rules aren't clear and Chaosium didn't handle it very well to clear this up. Spending 14 RPs that are going to be held up during an entire season (no replenishing) is a weird thing to do, but sure, why not. IMG, a bunch of evil spirits (disease spirits, etc.) would look at that character and think: "oooh, look at this nice little safe bubble... if I can get in there, I'm going to have a fun time! Maybe I'll call my friends to help". Any clever-enough NPC might also change their tactic to, say, lure the PC in a cave and create a landslide to trap him there, or some other way to disable the character without direct harm... I might even go the other way, let the PC have fun with it for the season: they just go through any encounter in this season with absolutely zero problem... and that attracts a lot of attention. Maybe their chieftains and priests are super happy with them and that creates jealousy... Maybe all these successes create shifts in the nearby monster population -- maybe the local Uz call for reinforcements, or they leave their caves altogether and that creates a vacuum that has a bunch of social and political and even mythical repercussions. Whenever the players come up with something crazy I ask myself how that can be used as an opportunity to take the story in a cool direction, whether it is by pushing back, or following along and ahead. If you're into house rules you could also change how Extension works, and make it a multiplier instead (cost x2 for one hour, cost x3 for one day, etc.). That might make spells way too expensive to extend, but I can't tell exactly which aspect of "Shield 10 for a season with 60 defensive MPs" is problematic for you. I personally like that you need to sacrifice some Sword Trance MPs to allocate to defensive boosting. That limits a bit the insane levels you can get to.

The Shakers actually broke off from the prior Quakers group... that's why I'd rather call the Maran Gorites "rumblers" (plus, it gives them a "wrestling / lucha libre" vibe! Imagine playing with a fancy mask!)

Storm Bull: "berserkers". Maran Gor: "rumblers". Babeester Gor: "shredders"

Oh wow I didn't expect the French edition to do any changes to the rules... I was already surprised to see an additional adventure in the preview PDF, when I thought these (along with any "original content") would go in separate books. My first reaction was to go check the occupation skill bonuses for the Hunter in the French version and YES, PEOPLE, WE DID IT (let's take credit for this shall we? ). The Hunter went from 140 points in the English version to 200 points in the French version. I haven't checked what other changes have been made, and frankly I'm not sure what I can share at this point anyway. I'm wondering @PhilHibbs what's your relationship with the French edition? Are you just a multilingual guy who backed the crowdfunding campaign, or are you involved in it in any way?