Beoferret

I read some Seneca years ago and didn't remember this one, so was inspired to look it up (thank you, BTW). At the risk of derailing this thread, I present these gems from Goodreads: “We are all chained to fortune: the chain of one is made of gold, and wide, while that of another is short and rusty. But what difference does it make? The same prison surrounds all of us, and even those who have bound others are bound themselves; unless perchance you think that a chain on the left side is lighter. Honors bind one man, wealth another; nobility oppresses some, humility others; some are held in subjection by an external power, while others obey the tyrant within; banishments keep some in one place, the priesthood others. All life is slavery. Therefore each one must accustom himself to his own condition and complain about it as little as possible, and lay hold of whatever good is to be found near him.” ― Moses Hadas, translator. The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca: Essays and Letters "Life is slavery if the courage to die is absent." ― Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Letters from a Stoic The last one sounds pretty Orlanthi to me. Or maybe something a Humakti would say?

I really like this interpretation. Even if the ceremony's evil-doing participant isn't immediately drawn into becoming a ceremonial antagonist, if said person was wooed by and accepted chaos during the ritual it'd still seriously compromise things - e.g., why'd the livestock blessing fail this year? There's an opportunity for an investigative adventure - especially if, with rising suspicions of ritual pollution within a community, people are beginning to blame someone who's completely innocent. Adventurers are then tasked with heading off a witch hunt, while searching out the real baddie (who might not even be living in the area anymore.) Similar in many ways to the "Crimson Petals" adventure. And great point about Orlanthi ceremonies vs Lunar ones, which to my mind maps on to their broader respective societies overall. Orlanthi have a strong (at times rigid) sense of right and wrong, and don't tolerate evil; but perhaps at the cost of risking the occasional false accusation, witch hunt, etc. Lunars are oh so tolerant and cosmopolitan, but accordingly have a much harder time resisting the influence of chaos and evil. Civilizational tradeoffs.

Thanks everyone (especially for pointing out something I'd missed when reading through the rulebook.) The point about how allowing characteristics improvements risks undermining key aspects of a CoC game is well taken. I might still allow characteristic improvements, but with significant limits on what can be improved, how much in total, and under what particular circumstances - e.g., maybe a PC joins a gymnastics society to work on agility in-between scenarios, but the necessary dedication to training comes at the expense of career skill experience checks, reading tomes, recovering SAN, etc. (i.e., the player needs to make a choice with the possibility that said choice doesn't really help them moving forward.)

Are there any official rules for how investigators can improve ability scores over time? I couldn't find anything, but (admittedly) may be overlooking something obvious. For a current game, I have at least one character who could conceivably improve their strength and/or dexterity (he's on the Miskatonic U football team and is a physical ed major) and also have some characters who could possibly improve their POW after upcoming sessions. I'm considering porting over modified RQ rules, but would like to stick with CoC RAW if possible. Thanks everyone!

This thread is raising a question in my mind: wouldn't any and all Humakti desert anyone who allied with Delecti (a hero of undeath)?

It's in the Lightbringers volume (and comes complete with a seriously badass depiction of our favorite god of dourly serious, death-dealing.)

Movies: Clash of the Titans - Harryhausen version Jason and the Argonauts Conan the Barbarian (1982) - aspects of it at least. Princess Mononoke - especially for the fight with the boar god and for the forest spirits As for the cults: Orlanth - the tempestuous storm god, who was an excitable young man of dubious morality who (after causing lots of trouble) turned into a semi-responsible grown-up - general cult for badass adventuring (fighter or rogue), being a storm worshiping priest (cleric), or a responsible leader (fighter) Humakt - dour, serious, and honorable - what if a samurai actually adhered to a rigid bushido code (one that included a duty to fight undead)? - paladin or fighter-type characters Storm Bull - your (often) meth-addled, biker-type barbarian - a real troublemaker who nonetheless stands on the side of the "good guys" when push comes to shove. Great versus chaos. Issaries - for the "faceman" of your party and the player who loves characters who enjoy getting rich, haggling over prices at the general store, negotiating treaties/deals, etc. Donander - for the those who love playing bards. Lhankor Mhy - the smarty-pants scholar guy - either an overly curious or stuffy wizard-type or an Indiana Jones (rogue?) fighting scholar Ernalda - earth goddess and a very important cult socially - great for clerics (healers, etc.) and socially-oriented PCs (female). Lots of roleplaying. Odayla or Foundchild - for those who want to play ranger-type characters - the difference is mainly one of character attitude (Surly loner who's into bears of the ursine kind? Go with Odayla. General hunter/woodsman who braves the wilds on behalf of others? Foundchild.) Yinkin - cat god with all that entails - rangers or rogues. Babeester Gor - the enforcer on the Gloranthan field hockey team, who looks out for the girls at the keg party (and beats the crap out of the guy who has a hard time taking no for an answer) - fighter or barbarian-type character (female only) Eurmal - the trickster, non-conformist, rebel god - for players who enjoy playing rogues, especially ones who are chaos monkeys (but not Chaos monkeys)

Have you thought about using the 7th ed CoC combat rules (especially as outlined in the Dark Ages supplement)?

My poor memory is telling me that the "Babs initiates can get it on (even with the boys), BUT can't get married and have to give up any children" rule/lore has been standard since the current iteration of RQ appeared. I don't have the book in front of me, but that's the take I've seen on these forums. I like it. It's playable, but lets the player know important things about their character: i.e., the importance of duty to their temple, the priestess they're protecting, etc. As an aside: is it Babeester Gor or Maran Gor that demands the sacrifice of male children born to initiates and/or priestesses? Seems more Maran Gor's speed, but maybe something an especially strict Babs temple (out in the boondocks) might insist on as well? (Either way, there's an adventure seed right there: priestess on the run, trying to bring her baby boy to a safe place, while pursued by the righteous along spirits of reprisal. Enter the adventurers....)

Here's a business opportunity for you, Ludo!

While RAW (to my reading, as well) requires natural skill of over 100% to engage in split attacks, I tend to think that's a tall order. Accordingly, I allow split attacks for any weapon skill over 100%, including after modifications after spells, inspiration, etc. I also calculate effective skill for split attacks from the total modified skill base (although JRE's idea has some real merit, to my mind; guess it depends on how you want combats to play out and how heroic you want characters to be.) Likewise, any combat skill over 100% (including modified) leads to a decrease in an opponent's parry. I think this makes all the combat-boosting spells, especially Sword Trance and Berserker, more effective (and fits with the spirit of the spells.)

If using an air elemental to corral the hazia haze, maybe even let it make an attack roll on Redeye as the elemental directly channels the smoke up Redeye's nose (which, if successful, results in a penalty to Redeye's resistance roll.

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! Someone else is going to have to step up and run a regularly updated blog about RQG developments. Yours was a really great resource and will be missed.

Played this yesterday. The demo gives you a three year run with the clan you build at the beginning. Holy crap, this is going to be a tough game when it's released in full. I managed to hold my clan together for the full three years, but dozens of people (esp. children) ended up starving and there were multiple points where I could have appealed to a chaos god for help (the pics that accompanied every encounter with chaos really drive home what the likely results of dealing with chaos are.) Great art overall - I hope that future RQG publications use some of the talent on display here.

Cool idea!

Now that the updated version of BRP has been out for around a month now, are any of you planning on utilizing any of the rules its outlines in your Runequest games (whether that means just adding things or actually switching rules out)? E.g., personally, I'm considering bringing in the rules for "closing" in combat.

Sounds like a frickin' cool idea to me. Something that could really mark your campaign as your unique campaign, but still solidly grounded in the logic and lore of the setting. Would the minor gods recoalesce on their own or would their respective tribes use a combination of heroquesting and the increase in ambient magical energies of the Hero Wars to bring them back into existence?

Seems like this would be an important Uroxi pilgrimage site. David, how did you set up the dangers that your players faced? Just throw a bunch of broo and other Chaos baddies at them?

Saving runaway Vendref from Pure Horse People oppressors could be a fun adventure seed for PCs from outside the Grazelands, but maybe not one that's canonically supported right now. Though maybe a small band of bandits or PHP purists might try to recreate the old ways of Vendref serfdom in a remote area? And even if Grazelander culture hasn't been completely fleshed out, one could always look for inspiration from historic horse-focused cultures and myths in ways that could provide adventure scenes or seeds. Like, what about an annual gathering of clans that (similar to the Three Winds Festival), incorporates various competitions, like mounted archery, horse racing, etc. and is topped off by a stallion fight - the winner becoming a wyter or being sacrificed. Of course, not all goes well. Or one could take inspiration from Hrafnkel's Saga: a clan is in turmoil after someone accidentally broke a geas/taboo by unknowingly riding a horse dedicated to Yu-Kargazant and was killed for it. Possible revenge killings loom on the horizon unless the PCs can restore harmony. Other ideas for possible Grazeland adventures: 1) PCs are hired to support a small caravan led by a merchant who (perhaps unknown to them) refuses to pay protection money to the PHP clans due to some past grievance. Opportunities for diplomacy and fightin'. 2) PCs have to deal with a vicious, corporeal horse-related spirit that only haunts areas a particular PHP clan frequents. While the spirit does prey on them, it primarily attacks non-PHP along their migration round. For some clan magic reason, they are unable to deal with it themselves and are not enthusiastic about asking other clans for help. The afflicted clan is thereby looking for outside help and/or assistance from discrete Grazelander adventurers. 3) Bandits (or just a disgruntled individual) have stolen some prize Goldeneyes. The majority of the clan's warriors/authorities can't take the time to do the job themselves (they're off to a very important hoedown), so it's up to the plucky adventurers to get those horses back. And perhaps not all is as it seems.

Thanks for sharing, Jason! I don't care what the Eurmali spirits of mischief say about you. You're alright.

It's hard to pick out what I'm not excited for. I'm especially interested in the fleshed-out Lightbringers and Earth Goddesses books (they'll be the most immediately useful for me) as well as the Shaman/Spirit Cult volume and the Chaos volume. Holy crap, the Chaos volume will be instrumental in making some really awesome baddies. On the slightly less serious note, I'm hoping that the Chaos volume will have a much extended table of Chaos features with which I can better customize my Broo for future horror and grossness. 10-12 pages would be nice. Woo hoo!

While the biggest question many of us had about upcoming publications has been answered (*see "The Cults of Runequest"), I'm wondering about a small scale addition that was first announced well over a year ago: the non-human adventurer pre-gens! (For anyone who doesn't know about this or remember it, hark and attend to this blog post: https://www.chaosium.com/blogcoming-later-this-year-for-the-runequest-starter-set-14-more-pregen-characters-nonhuman-adventurers/) Is this still a project that's intended for our greedy hands and minds within the year or has it been put on the proverbial back burner for the foreseeable future?

This seems like an aspect of the official post-1625 timeline that's ripe for gaming groups to reinterpret. What if the Telmori were simply ("simply") subdued, pressured, or diplomatically convinced to renew their bonds to the House of Sartar? PCs get the opportunity to take part in all sorts of machinations, etc. - possibly some involving violence - during the difficult process of winning the Telmori back, while conciliating all the clans who've been feuding with them. End result, Argrath gets a spiffy new group of guards and some potent warriors for his campaigns against the Lunars.

It's also probably good to know, as you're searching for Gloranthan imagery, that there have been several shifts over the decades in how some groups have been imagined, especially the Sartarites. For a time (but not at the beginning of RQ, I think), Sartarites were depicted and imagined as northern European-types (Celts, Germanic tribes, etc.) - in the King of Dragon Pass game, for instance. The Lunars were imagined by many to be almost Roman-like. That's definitely not the prevailing norm now, in either case.

For the core areas (especially Dragon Pass) I think of Italy before Rome runs everything (so, when the Etruscans, Samnites, etc are still independent); the Eastern Mediterranean during the period from the late Bronze Age stretching through a good portion of the Hellenistic era; some Mesopotamian/Babylonian influences; ancient India; and the Persians. To be more specific, I tend to think of ... 1) Sartarites - Samnites/Etruscans/Ligurians - mainly tribal, but with urban communities in a frequently mountainous area. Lots of Greek-style influence and a small amount of Celtic. The Etruscan angle may be the best (IMHO), though I'm partial to Samnite imagery (aside from the really short tunics they seemed to love). Maybe sprinkle with ancient South Asian elements. 2) Lunars - a Persian-style empire - lots of different peoples, including Greek-types. 3) Tarsh - (I honestly don't have a great handle on Tarshites, but maybe they're like Thracians) 4) Grazelanders - Scythians (or other similar horse-riding groups, like the Saka or Roxolani), with a scattering of Plains Indian elements. 5) Esrolians - mix of Minoan Crete, Mycenaean Greece, and ..... pick an ancient cosmopolitan people. 6) Praxians - they're definitely more fantasy-based, with a smattering of real-world cultural influences (or costuming, at least) - e.g., bison-rider women have hairstyles that are reminiscent of traditional Hopi women; High Llama mustaches remind me of Hunnic or Cossack facial hair; etc.) Those are my starting points. And there are a lot of images out there (esp. via Google image searches) that can give you the flavor of things. Of course, there are no 1 to 1 corollaries between any Gloranthan society and any real world culture. Take the historical inspiration and inject the fantastic elements of the setting and all the tattoos. Your Glorantha is yours, in the end.