Lordabdul

I would also say no... it doesn't specify if the casting has to be successful or not, so I interpret it as both. Just to be clear: I believe the character can act normally (attack, defend, move, etc.). They just can't use any other magic.

Thanks for those Q&A threads Jeff! AFAICT tin mining/trade (among a couple other things) greatly shaped the real world's Bronze Age progress and growth. In Glorantha you can mine bronze directly so there isn't much need for tin at scale, but bronze mining and trade probably have similar consequences on power dynamics. So where are the main deposits of bronze, who works them, and who controls those trade routes? Are all bronze mines Mostali owned, for example? (I'm not clear on that) I surprisingly don't see much about that kind of stuff in Gloranthan history -- I would have thought controlling or blocking the movement of resources would feature more prominently in conflicts? Basically I'm generally interested in what are the most important resources that drive trade, politics, and warfare at large scale. Thanks!

There is some mention somewhere in the main books that when an allied spirit's animal host becomes too old, the community/temple/whatever usually has prepared and groomed another animal to transfer the spirit into (after some fancy ceremony). So even if the spirit extends the host's lifespan somehow (I would allow it), it may or may not matter too much if you can work in there that "this is the 3rd alynx in a row to house this spirit"...

Hard to say... MOB and Trevor Ackerly wrote a few articles in Tales of the Reaching Moon, and wrote a bunch of stuff in the RQ3 Sun County book (including two scenarios, "Rabbit Hat Farm", and "The Old Sun Dome").

Common human bias misconception... "duck" is derogatory slang, not actual taxonomy. In reality, the Durulz involve a whole bunch of various anseriformes anthropomorphs! (although the much fabled Swan Durulz seems to have disappeared some time in the First Age). (OK, I'm just blabbering here but hey, let me have my joke!) But more seriously, it does make me wonder if the various small groups of Beast Valley might have their own custom terms for their leaders. Also: Dragonewts. I think they tend to name their rules things like "Lord-Prince One Ex"?

Thanks for doing these Q&A threads Jeff! Much appreciated. RQG consciously starts with "experienced characters" who have a few years' worth of adventuring (the skill scores' difference with a starting RQ2 character are pretty telling!). I wonder what went into this decision? Was it a desire to depart from the "zero to hero" grind, or instead wanting to have Rune Lord levels accessible within a certain reasonable number of sessions, or something else? Somewhat related: what went into the decision to recommend seasonal adventures? (and to actually recommend anything at all in the first place)

Yeah but you wouldn't be able to see the tattoo so I'm not sure it would be very different from touching a non-tattooed part of your body. I have no idea if you can feel a tattoo since I don't have tattoos (we should ask Ian Cooper maybe ). Maybe if it's got scarification?

For the Durulz, the term for ruler is "Mother Goose".

Ah gotcha. So I think you don't have any problem because it sounds like you have players who can make up their mind quickly, and can compute their SR on their own. Lucky you! Anyway, for those using a VTT (I guess that's everybody right now), there's this useful thing in this other thread:

My understand of the skill descriptions in the rulebook is that: Shiphandling is for the officers on a large ship. It's a Knowledge skill so it's really for knowing what orders to scream at the crew, managing everything, and taking correct decisions in the heat of action. Boat is for handling an entire small boat yourself. This is mostly a physical skill because you're doing all the work, but it's a skill nonetheless because you need to know how to do it. For everybody else on the ship, it's just CON, STR, Climb, Scan, etc. Although for a campaign entirely dedicated to sailing, I could see introducing a few new professional skills for specific positions (Knot Tying!). Remember that, in most circumstances (i.e. "everything's fine"), you can get +40% or more for rolls, so even a skill with a 5 or 10% default, plus skill modifier, looks OK at first glance. It's when a storm picks up, or you get attacked, that suddenly it doesn't look so good anymore.

So you don't do Statement of Intent then?

Not that I think it needs fixing, but one way you may want to investigate is to offer more tactical options. If you want evenly matched combats to not be resolved by luck, then they have to be resolved by better choices. This might mean ignoring the special and/or crit rules, and instead trying a mix of: Situational modifiers: give bonuses/penalties for cornering someone, flanking them, forcing them to retreat, getting the higher ground, jumping down on them from a balcony (and otherwise surprising them), etc. Roleplay modifiers: give bonuses/penalties for using extra skills to taunt the enemy, throw nearby objects or sand at them, or other extra actions that aren't just "I attack, I parry, I dodge". Long term modifiers: give bonuses/penalties for multi-round "investments", like for instance sacrificing SR or skill to get a bonus next round (to simulate "evaluating" the enemy, or doing feints, or whatever), etc. Half of these things can actually be implemented with the rules as written. Others might require a few simple house rules. To me, the only glaring problem with the combat rules is that it seems you can't move at all when you're engaged in melee... this is so wrong on many levels. I'm toying with the idea of trying out two simple house rules to fix this and help better implement my first point: (1) the winner in an exchange of blows may push (forward or diagonally) their opponent by 1 meter (and they follow by stepping forward also by 1 meter), and (2) stepping back by 1 meter (while staying engaged) gives you +20% for Parry or Dodge (but, similarly, your opponent follows, so this not about disengaging). This would let melee combats move around the scene a bit more, so to speak, bringing even more tactical options (jump over that rock! use that tree for cover! push your opponent towards the cliff!).

Hey people, I didn't say it made sense I just said it was more straightforward. Like, as a mnemonic way to remember the rule. If it was me, I would have just indeed used the same rules as for Telmori (i.e. all magic damage applies).

Oh right, I totally forgot that the table was non-symmetrical. Sorry about that. So really, Daka Fal initiates don't like a lot of people, but all these other people frankly don't care much and are neutral.

I think there's a more straightforward explanation: Gods can fight spirits, so Rune Magic hurts spirits. Spirit magic is powered by the spirit world, so that doesn't hurt the inhabitants of that world.

Depends -- I think both Jeff's and MOB's comments are merely reports from their own games. It's possible that Jeff changes the events a bit for the Dragon Pass Campaign book and re-aligns the date to 1625 to keep published books consistent. Or not.

What do you mean? Daka Fal is pretty neutral overall. It's only Hostile to 2 cults in the RQG compatibility table. It's got no Enemy cults. Also remember that there's a big difference between "can these 2 people belonging to 2 different cults get along?", and "can I initiate into these 2 cults?". The first question has even more elbow room for answers if you're not even considering 2 PCs in the same party, and only considering 2 separate groups of people who fight for the same war but might not even be at the same battle together.

Seems fine for Rune Magic, but what about Spirit Magic? My understanding is that Spirit Magic is more about tapping into the natural currents of the spirit world, which exists superimposed over the mundane world. So it's like powering magic using the forces of gravity and electromagnetism, only in this case the fundamental forces are actually characters from My Neighbour Totoro. I don't think the Gods have much to do with any of that, so I'm not sure exactly what the in-world reasoning is behind not being able to teach Spirit Magic spells that you already know? You may only learn about gravity by going to school, but once you get kicked out of school, you still know about gravity, and can still tell people about it, no?

Brilliant. Although... credit where credit's due: you still have a good GM and players around the table to be able to interpret the rolls in such epic ways.

I personally sent it out to print at Staples, a pretty standard office supply franchise in North America. If there's any shops selling you printers and paper and filing cabinets, and they offer a photo printing service, chances are they might offer a semi-pro printing service too. I wasn't sure about the various paper and layout options when printing, so it may or may not come out well... I'll post pictures when I receive it. But it's good to hear that there might be a proper print run later, so we can get the board and tokens with the expected board-game thickness and weight for this kind of thing.

Yep, but even then I would assume that, most of the time, the various members would proudly display their original tattoos, and that becomes the tattoos of different factions and bloodlines within the new clan. However, if the previous clan disintegrated for some super shameful reasons (collusion with Chaos, partying with broos, whatever), there might indeed be some arguments for having a tattoo removal. But again in my Glorantha it would be a very uncommon occurrence. I'm not sure how I would handle it... as with many things Gloranthan, you can either handle it in a simple logical way (hire a talented artist who can re-tattoo on top and make it look legit), in a convoluted magical way (find some cult or wizard or spirit that somehow has a justifiable way to alter the skin), or in a convoluted mythical way (heroquest your way out of the origins and genealogy of your clan somehow, and the tattoos magically disappear). I'm tempted to go with option 2 but haven't thought this through much.

My understanding is that when you marry into a different clan, you don't get tattooed with that clan's markings. You got your own clan's tattoos during your adult initiation rites, and that's what you have for the rest of your life. You're "adopted" into your new partner's clan, but you're very much "that person from the other clan originally". In the very unlikely event that you actually switch clans for real, you might get additional clan tattoos (but I don't know in what situation that would happen). Trying to remove your old tattoos feels to me like trying to reject your kin and origins, which feels like an Orlanthi taboo to me.... which isn't to say it's not possible. When you leave a cult and survive the Spirit of Reprisal, maybe there's a way to get some tattoo removal, but it's probably from some very shady and dodgy people.

Yep good questions... I'm not really sure whether the RQG designers intended the magic foci rules to be followed seriously, or if it was mostly "worldbuilding fluff". I very much play it as the latter, mentioning to my players how this is the way people cast spells in Glorantha, but then we mostly forget about it (although it comes up again when I describe NPCs, as they would have sigils and tattoos and whatnot that the players can guess are foci). It's just that, otherwise, it's annoying to track which spell has what focus, and then if the players lose or sell the item, they have to remake the focus. It's like battlemat minis or encumbrance rules, in a way: a group might love tracking that kind of stuff, while another one hates it. I can see myself taking foci more seriously with a different group. But anyway yes, if the spell focus is on a weapon, then if the character uses another weapon, they wouldn't have the focus at hand. I really depends: If the character has a mace and a broadsword, putting the Bladesharp focus on the sword's hilt makes sense -- you don't need it when using the mace. Putting the focus inside the shield can be useful. This way, you can look at it regardless of whether you're using the sword or the mace. Having the focus be some bracelet/necklace/etc. allows you to have it on you as opposed to your weapon. If you want you can wrap it around the weapon instead of your arm. Tattoos are popular probably because you can't lose them or have them stolen. In a culture like the Sartarites, everybody has tattoos. You don't have to hide it because whether this or that tattoo is your focus for Bladesharp is really a personal thing, so people wouldn't know (the tattoos are however typically used to identify your bloodline/clan/tribe). When in doubt, maybe the Lunar soldiers would scar their prisoners' tattoos to make it more difficult to cast magic? Mmmmh.

Completely translucent walls would be pretty bad for defending a city since, well, the attackers can see any preparation you're doing... but I think it would be awesome if the Mostali did some elaborate light bending engineering, and so people standing outside the walls might think, from what they see, that the people inside the city are 2 headed giants or something -- like an amusement park's "hall of mirrors" on steroids. With a bit more magic and imagination, you can even go in weirder places where the walls could potentially show you anything, making outside people think the armies amassed inside the city are 10 times bigger than reality. Or maybe, if you hold the correct "presentation" inside, they can show horrible visions that make these people flee in terror. Or maybe the glass walls can focus light into laser beams that destroy anything surrounding the city. You could even imagine that these various mirror shows and machines can only be activated and controlled if you have access to the "Master Refraction Control Room", a place built by the original Mostali architects, but whose location has been lost to the ages... maybe there's a few adventures there... first find the room, then find texts explaining how it works, find the key, find some replacement parts, etc. Sounds like a great scene... you try to break through the walls but all you get is a rain of sharp, super cutting shards falling on you. Imagine if Pavis came that way with his giant buddies, he would only get giants with bleeding hands.... I guess that's where his robot statue would have been super helpful.

Semi-permanent... see "POW Increase" in RQG p417. So you typically may regain a point or two of POW at the end of a season or between adventures, a bit like increasing skill scores.