Godlearner

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Does Lhankor Mhy have access to all Cult Lore skills? 

I would say no, but there is a case to be made for Buserian (although only to the Gods on the Wall perhaps)

1 hour ago, Kloster said:

A priest gives more time, has more dedication, leads worship, ... . So, he receives more.

Not the case. An initiate devoting 90% of his time and magic points tending the shrine, would still not get the same benefits as a priest.

14 minutes ago, Kloster said:

The titles are mortal ones. What the gods like are the gifts (POW, MP, attention, devotion, offers, time, ...), and they reward those who are giving the most with their best rewards (spells, powers,...).

In that case two worshippers with an equal Rune Pool would have the same abilities no matter the title, but they do not.

2 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

The titles of Priest, Rune Lord and God Talker are mortal politics that Gods would know almost nothing about (because, you know, they're stuck in the God's Plane). The only specific bits that would separate the average mortal would be the amount of RPs accumulated (ie, strengthen connection to the god), possibly their POW and/or CHA, and probably Runic Association. ven cult skills don't really matter to the gods...  it's all "convince the examiners", not "convince the deity".

ETA: It should also be noted that the gods are basically happy to work with whoever bothers to give them attention. The Elmal/Yelmalio division is a case in point, as are the Aeolian worshippers of Orlanth (clearly showing that the ban on sorcery is purely local and political, and not from the god himself!)

I am not sure about that, after all there are specific and  tangible benefits in terms of magical power to becoming a priest or a rule lord. Why would a priest, for example, have a +20% of a POW gain if it was all the same to a deity.

3 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

If it's Vrimak I think he'll just need to seek out a priest. The big bird already has an established cult; if you want to start another one from scratch, that'll take a Heroquest.

The problem is that he is on an island, and there aren't any priests.

In my case a player has discovered an inactive shrine to Vrimak and wishes to become an initiate. The character also happens to have an empty matrix of Speak to Birds,  I was thinking of having him make a Worship Vrimak (the skill does start at 5%) check and sacrifice a point of POW. He could also modify his roll by Sacrifice as per rules. What do you think?

Lets say a person wished to initiate himself to a God, but there are no worshippers of this God around. How would he go about doing that?

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though that supernatural element does not need to be anything more complex than 'and you can learn Ironhand/Strength/Protetion etc'. 

Yes, but those require an action to cast and have a limited duration, a true martial art would have neither.

2 minutes ago, Eff said:

One disadvantage is that the emphasis on increasing raw damage does make unarmed combat feel like all hard/striking arts and little or no soft/grappling arts. Granted, I'm not sure RQ combat could really handle adding on what soft martial arts styles are meant to accomplish. 

Agreed. What I would like to see is a variety of effects based on different styles. These can be things as a counterattack strike in the same round, or a skill penalty on the opponent in the following rounds and of course additional damage or increasing/decreasing the level of success.

Just now, davecake said:

OK, we seem to have a big failure of communication. While I acknowledge that learning a systematic weaponed fighting style is a martial art, on the RuneQuest rules martial arts is used specifically for systems of unarmed combat. 

While I think a supplement that got really into it would expand this a little, in general using the term martial arts to refer to armed fighting is just going to confuse the issue. 

What I was trying to say, and I think you agree, is that every Martial Cult/society has a "martial art". What we are doing is trying to identify which have unarmed styles. My argument is that Alkoth as a society should have an unarmed MA style associated with it.

3 minutes ago, aumshantih said:

The many islands of Vithela likely have the best martial artists in Glorantha.  

Sadly, Vithela is tragically under-explored, but I'm hoping to fix that.

There is a theory that all eastern martial arts can be traced to Pankration which was originally brought by Alexander's army to India from where it continued on. This may or may not be the case in Glorantha. In which case we should consider as to where Gloranthan Martial Arts originated in the first place.

2 minutes ago, davecake said:

Boxing is systematic training, and if you want it to be Martial Arts skill, sure. But remember fist and kick skill are different skills to martial arts - learning to fight well enough unarmed that you can take on someone armed is hard in Glorantha, and hard in real life, compared to learning to hurt them with a weapon designed for the task. Martial arts isn't learning how to punch someone - it is learning how to punch them just right so you do double damage, by learning to strike weak points etc. It's more than one skill - and so fairly expensive. 

So, why would a professional army take a lot of their training time out to learn to be a bit more dangerous when unarmed, when they could spend that time, instead, learning how to be more dangerous with the weapons they already are carrying with them? 

Now, in the West it has a specific cultural significance, and also it seems to be largely a noble thing, who are not armed all the time like the soldier caste. In the East, it is associated with all sorts of cool fighting magic and warrior cults (and I suspect Lunar martial arts is a similar mystic friendly tradition ultimately from the East). But for most bronze age warriors, it doesn't exactly seem like something to spend a lot of your training tine on. 

 

 

I will let this article speak to that

https://shortboxing.com/is-boxing-a-martial-art/

In modern armies Martial Arts are part of the training, but in the Bronze Aged societies, ones where people grew up learning combat skills from a young age, and army does not need to offer it of spend training time on it. Why should they, the soldiers already know it and its not something they will use in formations at all.

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Because you think all dangerous bronze age warriors were martial artists? OK, novel point of view, and not one I'm going accept really. 

But they were. No, not necessarily in unarmed combat. Their weapon skills techniques are Martial Arts, we are just talking about cults/areas which have developed such in particular.

5 minutes ago, davecake said:

With that logic, we would give every warrior god martial arts. Martial arts is a pretty rare thing, and harder to learn than  just fist fighting. 

Martial arts also is about applying intellect and systematic tactics to fighting. Shagashi are berserkers. 

Yes, we should, and no it isn't hard to learn. It is hard to master.

Pankration is perfect for berserkers, it has few rules and nothing is out of bound in the way of strikes and grapples.

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Well, I don't really associate Alkoth with unarmed fighting - they are far more military and murderous. And Pavis has no particular tradition of anything other than good old fashioned beatings. They use their fists, but I don't think it gets dignified with 'martial arts'. 

Alkoth dedicates itself to all things martial. Surely they would develop a technic when a weapon is not at hand. 

Boxing not a 'martial art' only in you consider it a 'sweet science', but it does fit a definition.

How about  Pankration for Alkoth and Boxing for Pavis.

The third book should be coming out soon, according to him. 

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The main character becomes a monotonously successful killing machine

What do you expect of a Humakti?

1 hour ago, pachristian said:

I don't know about the rat deity, but the mouse deity has a theme park with a castle in the far southwest.

Chaos! Kill it with FIRE!!!

Three is always a CRACK spell .... It would have to be boosted a lot to effect the Watchdog Could sever a leg for example.

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Or perhaps a cult more like Yinkin and Odayla, but associated with either Argan Argar or Xentha.

That's an interesting thought ......

6 minutes ago, Kloster said:

Correct, but you can use the dominate duration to explain him why he should give MP (big RP opportunities), and in that case, he becomes Lay member, and can even become initiate. You can force him to give, but there would be no benefit. I very much enforce the voluntary aspect of freely giving MP or POW, whether for worship, enchants or others.

No, voluntary is of ones own free will. Magical domination is not what. Even more, I would argue that which ever cult you try with, spirits of reprisal would be soon follow. At the very least, once the spirit becomes a Lay Member the shrine defenses would most likely register the dominating person as an enemy.

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If you bind a spirit in a matrix or dominate it for a long duration and have him possess an animal, you can bring him to a cult ceremony and ask him to spend 1 MP.

That does not sound like a voluntary donation and thus would not make the spirit eligible to a Lay Member

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Oh, and depending on what your GM thinks about these things

And that's the key.

10 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Given that many Malkionized Hsunchen have become specific warrior fellowships in Ralios, it's possible that a Rat Hsunchen group survived as an underground, subaltern thievery fellowship. Probably not a "cult" in the strictly theistic sense of the word, but if it's a closed-off group that has a close contact with an otherworldly patron entity the difference is mostly in game mechanics. 

This is up to you, of course, just mentioning that Ralios offers a ready pattern to emulate, if you so desire.

Agreed, although in this specific case Arlaten mentions a Priest, a Champion and a Temple and calls them idolaters. Sounds more like a theistic cult. (p64 in Strangers in Prax)

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One of the Hero Wars or HeroQuest supplements had an episode where you met a rat/mouse deity, or its avatar, a very odd scenario

Is this the one with the Fort of Doors? I ran that one in the past, but in it Brother Mouse was more of a Eurmal type figure