Lordabdul

Pretty much all Telmori have a Chaotic taint except for the "Pure Ones" in Ralios. These Telmori are like other Hsunchen with their animal totem. But the vast majority of Telmori are werewolves, with their curse forcing them to transform on Wilddays when the Red Moon is full. Once they are met with someone with Sense Chaos they are not getting killed automatically. Sure, they have a very upset Storm Bull cultist in front of them, but keep in mind that: Sense Chaos starts at 00% and can only be increased by experience, so not everybody is reliable with it. IMG, with many false negatives, Storm Bull people consider that a strong hunch rather than definite proof. Sense Chaos does not single out the source, and works only within 15 meters. When faced with a group of people, the Storm Bull cultist will be certainly staring down everybody, but won't be sure who's got the taint. Most Chaotic people can spot a Storm Bull cultist from a mile away and oh what's that I think someone's calling me over there and oh my look at the time sorry I'll come back again tomorrow I just remembered I had a thing. Sense Chaos gives a feeling of unease or spider-sense tingle or some stomach-ache or something, whose intensity is related to the "amount of Chaos" present. A Telmori (with 20% Chaos) would make you uncomfortable while a Broo (60% Chaos) gives you a sharp migraine. So you can adjust your reaction based on that. While it's possible you end up meeting that one total zealot Storm Bull cultist who kills anything with a Chaotic smell (including the false positives!), most Storm Bull cultists will think for a second before acting. How bad is the Sense Chaos feeling? Who is the target? Maybe it's better to follow them around, see who their friends are, find if they setup a Chaos shrine nearby, see if they infiltrated the tribal ring, and so on. Even a relatively dumb and violent Storm Bull cultist will have learned that if it's got the normal amount of legs and doesn't have a goat head, it's more constructive to assess the situation and gain more info before swinging an axe. This is also all mitigated by the fact Telmori are well known to be Chaotic in Dragon Pass. Not many people like them (because indeed everybody knows they're Chaotic), but they are still part of the Kingdom of Sartar. Sartar himself made a deal with them and, for a while, the Telmori provided special bodyguards to the Prince. There are probably still Telmori in Boldhome right now. IIRC Kallyr Starbrow has an alliance with them from the years of guerilla fighting the Lunars. So like them or not, they're broadly speaking "on your side" and Storm Bull cultists (especially Sartarite ones) might "let it slide" if they see one. Plus, everybody knows that when the Maboder tried to mess with them, they got completely exterminated. So again, people will think twice before doing anything. But sure, a lot of people will "keep an eye" on them, spit when they walk past, tell them to go away, and so on. This is good: this is what roleplaying is about. Last, I imagine that the Telmori are very very reluctant to accept outsiders as a member of their pack. Your player might manage to make friends with the Telmori, and learn a few things. But to become a Telmori proper they might have to spend a whole bunch of time running around half naked in the woods, heroquest to awaken their wolf spirit, heroquest again to find their wolfbrother, and then be adopted into a pack and spend most of their time with that pack between adventures, and during adventures always have their wolf with them. The heroquesting would totally bring a 20% Chaos Rune in addition to Telmor cult secrets and magic, because that's what it is. But again, that's good! You want to play a werewolf, you gotta play a werewolf, with all that entails.

The initiation series welcomes power-newbie Diana Probst of Beer With Teeth, who talks to us about fractal gaming in Glorantha, constructive cosmology, YGMV, tea bribes, and ice shinty, among many other digressions!

The Journal of Runic Studies #49 is out! It's late but it was a short week. A new initiation series episode with Diana Probst, what constitutes Rune Magic, Joy and Ascended Masters, and more!

Take the society you live in right now -- there are a lot of social norms. Be polite, wash your hands after going to the toilet, invite people back, be a gentle host, hold the door, let people come out of the bus before you get in, give you seat to the elderly and pregnant women, and so on. It's not "dishonourable" to not do these things. It's just, like, being an asshole. Or having a high Disorder Rune. Passions are driving principles of your character's life: love and protect your family, be loyal to your Queen, and so on. Do they think that upholding the traditional values of Heortling culture is on par with these other principles? Do you know anybody who holds politeness or sense of place or whatever to a comparable degree to "yes, if called upon, I'm going to take my father's sword and shield and go fight"? (well, 60% of the time) If so then, I don't know, maybe add a "Cultural Zealot" Passion or something. Maybe characters like Serena Waterford in Handmaid's Tale have something like it. But for the vast majority of characters, I think how much they value social norms goes under the radar of the Passion mechanics. With a more granular system like, say, GURPS, you might be able to take a -1 or -3 Disadvantage that gives a small penalty to the NPCs' Reaction Rolls. But RuneQuest is go big or go home -- either it's something that gets your blood boil and your heart pumping, or it's not. So again, I think you're really talking about who's got higher Harmony vs Disorder, along with lesser effects of Loyalty/Love Passions.

I think that spike on the other end is also to drive the pike in the ground when facing cavalry, no? I really liked both the comicbook and the movie, so I approve of this!

Your reasoning is sound, and that's why I was also confused about what gets turned into Rune spells and what doesn't. Based on other answers I got from Jeff on the same topic, my understanding is that this all must be mitigated by thinking about the archetype of a God and its position in the cosmos. Having an "Orlanth Repentant" (love the name!) sub-cult that offers mediation and reconciliation magic would possibly require Orlanth to become a runner-up in the shortlist of "avatars of the Harmony Rune". This list is already occupied by other gods such as Issaries or Chalana Arroy. That might put Orlanth at odds with those gods (who are his buddies, by the way) or somehow move his role around within the monomyth, and possibly creating an opening for some other god to become the new main Air or Movement (unless Orlanth is "big enough" to add one more Rune to his roster). And I frankly can't really describe Orlanth's and Yelm's agreement to be super efficient and agreeable anyway. Disclaimer: this is my own interpretation as of, like, two weeks ago. I'm still processing all this stuff and trying to reconcile rules and setting. And yeah despite this I still think Yelmalio should have some sort of resilience/tough-it-out spell -- it would not only fix common player complaints, but (and I'm spitballing here) it might also be linked to the Stasis Rune (which Yelmalio would have to gain), making a lesser-used Rune more useful (please ignore for 5min that Yelmalio is also a star that moves… like I said I’m spitballing)

That's a totally valid question. To be honest, the answer at this time is mostly "you can if you do most of the work". The game doesn't have heroquest mechanics, doesn't show what superhero stat-blocks and powers might look like, etc. The former was supposed to be fixed with the release of the Gamemaster Guide this year but it sounds like it might not be in our hands until next year. The latter may or may not be addressed with the upcoming Dragon Pass/Hero Wars campaign book, which is probably a couple years away. It's not so bad though, especially if you like playing around with house rules. Some of us have had some experience with the upcoming heroquest rules during public playtests at conventions and such, so we can provide notes on how that works (send me a PM if you're interested). Other things you'll have to make up as you go, but on the other hand you'd have to make it up as you go anyway: the published material can't anticipate what kind of crazy scheme your players might want to do (do they want to resurrect an old Orlanthi hero? do they want to contact a Seshnelan goddess? do they want to kill and bind a East Isles deity?) Of course, you could wait until someone publishes a specific "grand superhero campaign" but there's none that I know in the works. And I guess this leads us into your next point: AFAICT Chaosium's direction is to cater to more mid-high-level gameplay: you get to be a companion of Argrath, but you're not his peer. You might be a peer of, say, Leika (for which we do have stat blocks) and other powerful Rune Level NPCs, but not higher than that. I don't totally know what Chaosium has up its sleeves though.

Yep, and not only in terms of discussing the tone/power level/goals for the campaign, but also time-frames: a campaign where you rise up to be the Khan of the Bison Tribe or whatever might be played over several years (in-game), which might require regularly skipping entire seasons (depending on the group's gaming schedule and play style). This might lean towards an almost Pendragon-like game framework, which is the classic template for grand sagas. There are alternative frameworks, of course, but anyway, it's a conscious choice.

That's because you're looking at it from a thematic and/or narrative angle. My comparison is strictly on a gameplay level. Sure there are also differences in gameplay (SAN mechanics and such), but really, I guarantee you, CoC gamemasters have had to figure out the hard way how to answer a lot of the questions in this thread. Now, the reason I said it answers "only" 90% of the questions is indeed because, unlike the cosmic horror of the Mythos that is supposed to make you feel helpless and only delaying the inevitable, the heroic setting of Glorantha is supposed to accomodate player characters who rise up as leaders who actually do something about stuff. In CoC you will most probably never be the military leader of a small European country, but in Glorantha you could become the leader of some large warband, a tribal king, and even higher than that if that's what your group decided the campaign would be about. To be come a super-hero like Argrath or Harrek, I would just take a look at what these NPCs did. They didn't go treasure hunting in the Big Rubble until they got all their cult's Rune Spells, or until their POW gain rolls maxed out at 21. That doesn't get you anywhere besides Rune Level. Nope, they did other stuff. They heroquested repeatedly and allied or bound or stole powers from gods and powerful spirits. Then they used these powers to gain more powers, or to build up an army or a pirate fleet or whatever. Their rise to super-herodom took years -- in the case of Harrek, there's enough for at least two big RQ campaigns before he slays and binds the White Bear. So if I wanted a super-hero game, I would do that. Every time I heroquest I can sacrifice some POW to store in the Hero Plane and after a few years I too can have POW 40 or whatever Harrek has. And at the same time I also get a dozen big rules-breaking powers, because that's what heroquesting is for. And then I can use these powers to lead larger and larger factions and go into even crazier adventures that yield bigger rules-breaking abilities. I'm sure it wouldn't take too long before I'm on par with most second tier NPCs like Kallyr Starbrow or Harvar Ironfist. And then why not continue? A player could realistically become the next Feathered Horse Queen or Prince of Sartar if, again, we agreed that's the kind of power level we wanted to get to. What's preventing anybody from doing that in their game? Nothing.

That makes sense, thanks!

I've often said half jokingly that Call of Cthulhu (or any other sort of cosmic horror investigative RPG) should be required playing. It's got everything you need to learn to deal with: Super powerful monsters that you can't possibly beat with your puny weapon: you have to find ancient artifacts, acquire forgotten magic, and perform cosmic rituals at specific places and times to get around the problem. Player characters that are "unbalanced": did I say you had a puny weapon? Maybe you don't even have that! I'm looking at you, journalists and history professors and antiquarians. All extremely fun and useful characters to play in CoC. Meta plots: you're up against Nazi scientists and archaeologists in 1937, trying to stop them from acquiring Mi-Go technology to use on their U-boat programs, or forging an alliance with Deep Ones, or whatever. Even though you know WW2 will happen, it's still fun and there's plenty to do, with plenty of player agency to go around. Very important NPCs: you can get missions from British generals and American presidents, you can spy on leaders of worldwide Mythos cult organizations, you can face centuries-old sorcerers. ... and more! (ask me something, I'm sure I can spin it as something CoC teaches you!) Seriously, 90% of the questions in this thread (and many other similar threads) can be answered by playing a CoC campaign or two -- and the reason CoC is a great teaching experience is because you don't have any other choice than to figure it out. It's not like "SuperCallOfCthulhu" is even a thing, and you can't just shrug and go dungeon crawling or whatever. You either play CoC or you don't.

Interesting... how would you determine whether a particular aspect or achievement of a god goes into a "standard" cult Rune Spell, or is left as an exercise to the devoted initiate/player? Why does, say, Orlanth get Dark Walk but not Tame Waters or whatever? Of course, one can easily consider that acquiring a new Rune Spell is, indeed, heroquesting a particular god's myth for a related personal boon. The difference is that a "standard" cult Rune Spell demands the applicant to heroquest along very well-known myths, so it's mechanically abstracted as a simple time jump and POW sacrifice. Maybe the Yelmalio cult has several such spells that they don't want to teach, not even to their members, because they want all initiates to "find their own light" or whatever. It's easy to find an in-world explanation one way or another, but I'm more interested in the game design process here.

It might be interesting to get a few JC authors together and write this, yeah -- sort of the gameplay version of the old HeroQuest Voices...

Anyway, the Journal of Runic Studies #48 is out! Updates on the RuneQuest Cults book, more Elmal/Yelmalio discussions, Waha's limitations, Glorantha internet memes, Krasue, and more!

Thanks! I get comments from here, twitter, facebook, reddit, discord, and a few other places... so if I write any annotations, they would definitely go on the website, because that's the place I have most control over... but anyway, we'll see how things progress. I might change the "formula" a few times based on how much free time I have, based on feedback, and so on.

Of note, the RQ3 cult write-up is quite different and significantly more problematic than the RQ2 one, which I find OK.

What is it that Greg and yourself don't like about Thanatar? Sure, Waha has a limitation on the Heal spell, but they can somewhat easily learn spirit magic from their associated cults, including many useful spells from Eirithia, Foundchild, and Storm Bull (among others), so their spirit magic should be pretty good. I see however that you're allowing everybody to learn everything, in which case I don't know why you would keep the Heal 1 limitation? The thing about mostly only learning from associated cults is that it models the mythical relationships between gods... the Heal 1 limitation is also part of this modelling (as explained by Jeff in a previous message), so if you ignore one, you should ignore the other IMHO. In terms of Rune Magic, Waha might look forgettable, but note that he's the only cult besides Daka Fal to provide Discorporation to simple initiates. The Summon Spirit of Law is also useful against Chaos -- it's not super powerful, but it's cheap (there's no Command spell follow-up required!) Finally, remember that Waha has a shamanic path, and shamans are super awesome and powerful. And for those who become Rune Lords instead, there's the "Call Founder" spell which can be an absolute game changer, not just for clearing the dungeon's final boss but for actually changing the course of history for your tribe and for Prax as a whole! It's super super expensive, but I don't think any other cult has access to this much power without complicated heroquesting and stuff. The other thing to consider, of course, is Waha's political position in the Praxian nomads. It might not matter if your group is murder-hoboing in Sartar or whatever, but in Prax this is as close to "nobility" as you might get, so the Waha player gets opportunities others might not.

Makes sense, thanks. I still think I'll ask for a successful Honor roll before taking the hit, because that keeps it consistent with how losses in other Passions and Runes works at our table.

Right. Well by RAW, the Dishonor Table is valid for "all humans of Dragon Pass". So you can still have varying concepts of honour between humans and non-humans, and between Dragon Pass and elsewhere.

That's a fair point. So when I say "it depends", it's not about the act in isolation, but the act in context: "it depends if it matters." Sure, the scary Babeester Gor lady decapitated a dinner guest, but then she retrieved the tiara that belonged to a recently murdered priestess from the dead man's pocket. Everybody (including her) understands what she did was "bad", but her vow to serve the Earth temple was greater (or whatever Passion/Rune rolls showed). I'm sure a Humakti bodyguard in attendance would be absolutely outraged because he has different priorities ("nothing should outweigh matters of honour!"). The Humakti might have never done it (or suffered a -35% to his Honor Passion), and it's not like the scary axe lady doesn't think it wasn't dishonourable (it was), but she thought it wasn't as important as catching the murderer-thief and avenging her dead boss. So "it depends" whether it matters given the broader context, like @Dr. Device says. Note 1: the cults with a "favored" (i.e. "recommended") Honor Passion are Humakt (required for Rune Lord), Orlanth, Yelm, and Yelmalio (not absolutely required). There are several warrior cults without any particular penchant for honour... I'm sure Maran Gori will laugh at you for bringing up the subject, and most Babeester Gori might go to "whatever lengths necessary" to catch their target. Note 2: how do people handle the losses of honour? (p234) I haven't had to use that table yet, but it might happen at some point given that one of my players is playing a young Yelmalion with a Honor Passion. I'm tempted to not just apply it automatically. Instead, I'm tempted to ask the player why their character feels compelled to break their personal code, pit that Passion or Rune against the Honor Passion, and apply the Honor loss only if Honor wins.

I already commented on this line elsewhere (possibly the Discord server) but my personal interpretation is that it's important to remember this line is in the context of war battles. So IMHO this is about, basically, not having one tribe or kingdom attack another by surprise without a formal declaration of war and other usual parleys between representatives happening in the days and weeks prior. However, once the war is ongoing, of course one side is going to outflank and surprise the other (and vice versa), using all the usual battle tactics you can think of. Plus, there might be a particularly dishonourable commander on one side that does a particularly dishonourable thing to try and win a battle (history is full of these kinds of guys!) The guerilla warfare that the Sartarite rebellion did for years is, of course, not very honourable. But Kallyr and her companions would say it's necessary. And that's one reason Kallyr is such a divisive figure (compared to, say, Argrath who "properly" marches in with an army). The whole Lunar occupation era is a test of everybody's Passions. Some people and clans lean toward "the Lunars are Chaos-worshippers, so forget your honour and your rules" while others lean towards "we can't lose our way and ourselves, we'll endure this" (and yet others embrace the Lunar way and accept the new illuminated overlords). This is the classic trope of how far your Sartarite is willing to go for what they think is a greater good. So you see, IMHO, it depends. Is this a situation where a war or feud has been declared between faction A and faction B? Then unless you have the "never ambush" geas (or some other rigid code of honour), sure, go ahead and ambush troop movements, capture scouts, stop supply convoys, and so on. That's just warfare as usual. I don't see why you wouldn't do these things. Or maybe you're cattle-raiding in raiding season? If you stay within the rules of engagement (some bloody noses but no dismemberment or death) then that's also expected -- people have been raiding their neighbours for generations, so everybody expects it at some point. On the other hand, is this happening in relative peace time? Are you ambushing someone travelling from Jonstown to Boldhome? Surprise-attacking some bored guards posted at the Clearwine gates? Then you might not be much more than a bunch of bandits, i.e. mostly dishonourable. Most importantly: it always depends. It's a matter of perspective! And a matter of who can win the argument! It doesn't matter who's right or wrong -- you can argue that something was honourable or not until you're red in the face, but the one who wins the argument is the one who got support from the people, the backing of the chieftain, half the tribal ring vouching for them, some ancestors agreeing with them, or a combination of all those things. When in doubt, turn it into the next chapter of the story!

It can yes. It's not a hard rule -- it depends on each character and their backstory. Some might still have a tribal loyalty, some might have a city loyalty, and yet others might have some other loyalty or no loyalty at all (although that's unlikely). Imagine you're playing in a modern setting game and you want to model an FBI agent working in Austin but who grew up in a small town in Wyoming. What is their personal relationship to the USA as a whole (they have federal jurisdiction and duty after all), to the Austin office (they might have a mentor there they are loyal to), and to the folks back home in Wyoming (maybe they hate them and never want to go back, or maybe they're longing to get back there) ? It all depends, right ? Same with your Gloranthan characters. They might belong to one of the cross-tribal cults (most of the specialist cults with low numbers, really) or have a cross-tribal position (Orlanth god-talker or city temple staff or whatever) and might consider themselves more a "Boldhomite" (or whatever they're called) and less a this-or-that-tribe-member. Or maybe their lineage is a mess of multiple marriages between tribes, going back generations, and the one common thing is that the past 4 generations have lived in Boldhome. Basically, feel free to deviate from the Family History guidelines in the rulebook. Figure out who the characters are, and then model it with Passions -- not the other way around. You can be loyal to somebody you don't love (you probably don't love your military commander!). Plus, you can be loyal to an institution (temple, tribe, etc) regardless of the individuals in it, and whether they come and go. On the other hand, you can love someone you're not loyal to (you're not going to follow the orders of your 8-year-old nephew, right?) There is some overlap though -- you can get "inspired" by both loyalty and love, and you can ask for support out of loyalty and love too. Mechanically they're pretty similar, so just pick the label that seems to better fit... it will get used the same way in game anyway.

Oh yeah, which is why my small write-up above had the Yelmalio cult as a small fish in a big pond. But it's a small fish that is very well trained moving as a school and using a long pike, so that's probably the one card they play at the political table. When the Esrolian grandmothers are moving their pieces across the chessboard, one of those pieces is the Yelmalio cult (*) (*) of course the usual disclaimers apply: it's my personal take as of today, it might change, I haven't read the Stafford Library, etc.

My uneducated hunch is that the Little Sun tradition of Esrolia is basically as a well behaved show dog for the ruling Earth priestesses. I mean, in terms of Fire/Sky, they have the much more fun, lustful, and powerful Lodril-adjacent people next door. And they don't really need too much protection in general (they have Babeester Gor for that), nor do they need much Darkness-fighting abilities, since they probably deal with the shadow plateau trolls on an Argan Argar/husband basis. So Yelmalio is probably seen as that rebound/fling that the Earth Goddess had in between more "proper" husbands. Sure he was cute and had nice blonde hair, but he probably doesn't have a very big role. The cult's numbers in terms of very well trained warriors isn't to be ignored though, so I'm sure the ruling priestesses stay in good terms with them with marriages and some place nearby during ceremonies. These guys come in handy when there's a war, or when relations with the trolls are strained somehow. If anything, these Yelmalions might realize they haven't been treated as well as they "deserve" once they realize how much better their Sartarite, Grazelander, and Pelorian cousins have it. But they just don't have much leverage except as a military force, so it all comes down to politics, and show their value compared to unruly Orlanthi, troll armies where half the infantry are trollkin, and Maran Gorites who aren't exactly subtle... or easy to stop once they get started.

FWIW I got Thunder Rebels and Storm Tribe solely for the descriptions of holy days, which gives ideas of what to run in a game when those days come up. I was hoping that holy days descriptions were going to make it into the upcoming cults book, but last I heard, they aren't, so I guess these two books will still be useful for that. But otherwise, I found the numerous god names and subcult names tedious, and the pigeonholing of abilities and gender roles annoying, so I'm happy it got retconned. Discussions about what is canon or not are useful (to know what's up with the current version of Chaosium's Glorantha), but arguments and complaints about changes in the canon aren't generally worthwhile -- let it go, already, and play it differently at your table if you want. Non-Sun Dome Temple Yelmalions is a thing I've had to think about a bit since I'm playing around the Alone Confederation, where there are a couple of minor Yelmalio temples (one in a Alone, one in Amadhall if I remember correctly), and one of my players is a young Yelmalion in his apprenticeship years. I'm still tweaking my view on the topic but so far I figured that since these people are proud of their martial discipline, they might spend a lot of time training and living together, somewhat more so than other cults. I picture it like having a military base near your town -- you'd see groups of them jogging around and doing mock deployments all in matching uniforms, but they also have a walled training compound with restricted access where they can be heard fighting. I would contrast that against the Orlanth Adventurous and Humakti temples where members dress in various ways (although more goth-black with the Humakti!), and where the doors are possibly often open for anybody to come in and spar a bit, for a fee, like a dojo or boxing club. Of course, the Yelmalions have some days off and that's when they come into the local inns and run into "friendly chats" with the local Orlanthi. Queue most "infantry vs navy" scene in any army movie.