Lordabdul

Oh and it looks like all those questions I alluded to have been moved to the Red Book of Magic Q&A page (I imagine this is for centralizing all information on the same page and avoid having to bounce between RBoM and rulebook Q&As)

Don't forget that many questions like these (and more) have already been answered by Scotty on the Q&A page in the Well of Daliath.

In my experience, the blocking factor about RQ's crunch isn't age or education or even mathematical skill, it's personal taste. Some people just don't like crunchy systems, whether it's tables or multiplications or whatever. Some people don't even like roll-under systems. I like crunchy systems and even I find RQ too crunchy (and have been advocating for a big streamlining of the rules ever since I got into RQ). I'm sure young people are just as likely to like/dislike RQ as anybody else. And I assume many old-time RQers got into it as teenagers anyway. My 13-year-old has read all of the Percy Jackson books and all their spin-offs and indeed knows a whole bunch about mythology that way. My younger kid is reading the D'Aulaires book directly. Of note, Rick Riordan has been investing a bunch of his success into other authors from other backgrounds, so if you look into the "Rick Riordan Presents" series, you'll find books in the same vein as Percy Jackson but dealing with Aztec/Mayan mythology, Hindu mythology, and so on, so my kids got some basic knowledge from those pantheons too.

The Well of Daliath actually has an illustration of this here, with the map you used for our game at ChaosiumCon (fun times!) I'm sure it will help people better picture what you mean: And more here.

When I started playing in Glorantha around 2019-or-so I was wondering how heroquesting was different (or not) from "going to weird places" in other games. For instance, in Call of Cthulhu, most adventures happen on Earth, but every now and then there's a scenario for which you need to go through a portal to R'lyeh, summon some weird beasts to fly to Carcosa, or take some drugs to the Dreamlands. It felt to me like heroquesting was a bit similar, only you go to the magical eternal land of gods instead. And so I didn't really understand the whole "re-enactment" stuff from older RQ/KoDP/HQ material... It sounds like you're using a similar approach here, ignoring the "mythic LARP" aspect, or am I misunderstanding?

Here is what they look like: Note that five of saddle-stiched books in the second picture (between RQ2 and Cults of Prax) are the Classics Essentials pack from the RQ2 Classic Kickstarter. I think that the POD version currently sold by Chaosium now combines all these books in one. Two other saddle stitched books are the Gateway and Apple Lane books that Rick mentioned above, and one is a GM reference booklet for RQ2 that I believe was also part of the Kickstarter.

Episode 15 is out! We welcome Dom Twist to talk about the best bad guys of Glorantha: the Tusk Riders! We discuss their publication history, what PCs and NPCs might know them, their secret origin, how to use them in your RuneQuest campaign, and more!

Our latest newbie interview is with Chris Webb, who gave up on Glorantha in the 80s after saving Gringle's pawnshop without using any magic! Plus: the importance of having references, good friends, the best spell in RuneQuest, and Runes on your roof!

I can't speak about the whole sex and gender stuff because I don't know anything about it, but I can speak about the Gloranthan and game design aspects. The initiation rites in SSiS are taken directly from Greg's writings (here and here), but I remember some post where Greg and/or Jeff said that these were merely common examples of Orlanthi adulthood rites. So different tribes might do things differently, and that's potentially more true outside of Sartar, with Orlanthi clans in Lunar Provinces or in Maniria or whatever. I also wouldn't trust that Greg's old writings used "sex" and "gender" in a strictly "correct" and consistent way, so whether these rites are "per-gender" or "per-sex" or whatever is, IMHO, undetermined. Jeff's most recent note on the matter can certainly be read as either "gender-based" or even "co-ed": It also depends on the game design aspects of it. Are you looking for new rites as a basis for something an NPC experienced, or as the basis for something a player character will experience in play? If the latter, it would depend a lot on how you're going to play it -- for instance, whether you intend to have one-on-one game sessions with each player, or if you're going to play the adulthood initiations as a group. Some players might not find it very interesting to go through a predetermined series of steps like in SSiS and for those you would have to loosen things up a bit. Other players might not want to sit and wait for the other PCs to do their thing, so you could simply rule that their tribe has co-ed adulthood initiations, even if each PC might experience things differently inside the myths. Other players don't want to improvise and come up with stuff so you would indeed need to prepare some initiation stages to go through. But my point here is that gameplay consideration shouldn't be put aside for "mythical gloranthan correctness" or whatever.

The Journal of Runic Studies 60 is out! A new #RuneQuest release in print, nice new stuff on the Jonstown Compendium (ducks!), some news of the Lunar issue of Escalation! Magazine, the Lady of Elche, big stone balls, and more!

The Journal of Runic Studies #59 is out! Our latest episode on Nomad Gods, game balance, a Fantasy Grounds update, Chaosium's new PDF release policy, distances and travel in Glorantha, evil Vadeli, discorporation, ducks, and more!

By the way, if assistant shamans get Discorporate from the Horned Man, do they maintain a 1-point Rune Point pool for him? Or is it blended into the pool for Daka Fal/Waha/Yelm/whatever?

That's a super useful post, thanks David! On the topic of Axis Mundi, per RAW it doesn't allow this -- it brings ancestor spirits down to the Mundane World, but doesn't help with going the other way, to the Spirit World. But I vaguely remember @Crel and myself chatting about it for a bit when figuring out how his assistant shaman character would be able to take the other PCs with him in to the Spirit World the future. I think he sort of wanted Axis Mundi to work like that too, and we figured we might have to bend the rules or find another way. It's interesting to see we might not have been too far off actually. Sadly IIRC we moved away from the idea because Axis Mundi is only given by Daka Fal and Waha in the rulebook. His character was gearing up to be an Eurmali shaman, which meant also bending the rules about what Rune spells Eurmal gets, and that didn't feel right. Well, it might feel right for Eurmal (because who the fuck knows what he can do, eh?), but it didn't feel right in general. IIRC the upcoming Cults book is giving Discorporation to the Horned Man to fix the issue with assistant shamans. A subsequent fix would be to not only amend the Axis Mundi spell effects, but also give Axis Mundi to Horned Man. Or some other "Funky Discorporate Party" spell that's a subset of Axis Mundi.

In episode 14 of the God Learners podcast, we return to our exploration of Prax through the lens of the 1977 board game "Nomad Gods". @David Scott expertly guides us through these strange lands. We discuss the French version of the game, the magic rules, shamans, spirit societies, chaos monsters, and more!

The Journal of Runic Studies #58 is out! Our latest initiation series episode, some old fanzines, Jonstown Compendium items on sale, Glorantha animals, Arkat, lots of Malkionism, a hole to hell, feathered shields, and more!

And in addition to the fine products mentioned above, how about a couple of short adventures that are easy to drop in your campaign?! "A Short Detour" is a moral conundrum where you fight scorpionmen and broos! With some appendix essay and rules on Chaos! Everything you ever wanted to know about it! "Bog Struggles" is spirit-world body horror with cute newtlings! You get to maybe join a Water-based spirit cult, because you know you probably don't have enough Water stuff in your RuneQuest games! They're both available for only a few bucks!

In our new Initiation Series episode we talk to another Scott! He's a newcomer to Glorantha who couldn't wish for better guides to navigate Strike Ranks and Sartarite tribes, but there's still a mountain of lore to deal with!

The Journal of Runic Studies #57 is out! Reviews for Ludo's books, Khan of Khans on sale, animal totem people, lots of sneak peeks at cult genealogies, the Dragon Pass campaign, sorcerers, Rune Magic designer notes, old board games, floor plans, and more!

Seems more fun to me that Shield and Countermagic do come with some downsides, but I'm sometimes an evil bastard with my players 😈 So yeah, MGF, and YMGFWV 😄 FWIW, IMG it also does partially explain people coming back from fights/battles/raids with scars and injuries and missing limbs, because it was deemed too expensive to spend the extra MP to heal them, or all the MP was spent punching through the Countermagic of the important people...

Since last time I posted here, Bog Struggles rose up to Copper Best Seller! Thanks to everybody who got it. If you're still on the fence about it, you can read Pookie's review!

Since last time I posted here, A Short Detour has risen up to Silver Best Seller! Thanks to everybody who got it, and to the few people who sent me constructive feedback on it. If you're still on the fence, read Pookie's review here!

I actually _always_ read stuff like 7M3 as "7 masteries + 3" so I would have loved to completely inverse the notation 😄 But obviously that wouldn't be possible.

The Journal of Runic Studies #56 is out! Worldbuilding notes, divine genealogies, a rant on RuneQuest game design, various miniatures, a Sri Lankan fortress, a bad-ass cow, and more!

Yes exactly, an Odaylan investigator might be "psychological/emotional" (he puts himself in the place of the hunted to better hunt them), whereas a Lhankor Mhy investigator is probably "brainy/intellectual" (although for that same book I mentioned have that concept for a Sherlock Holmes Babeester Gor who chases difficult to find oathbreakers using her reasoning powers... and her axe... take Robert Downey Jr.'s Holmes and replace martial arts with a big ass axe, basically)