Shiningbrow

" Ulanin the Rider for the Red Cow "

Is that an Orlanthi sub-cult?

I find it more interesting that one can be a priest of one cult and another Rune Master level in another... multiple initiations - sure. But being in positions of authority is a bit odd (IMO). Sort of conflicting responsibilities... What if one cult needs you to do A, but another needs you to do B - which takes precedence?

I know I'm resurrecting a 2 year old thread here, but I do want to know if there are stats coming for some of the Big Names in the Hero Wars (past, present, and possible future).

We do have stats for Queen Leika and her entourage, and they're not particularly impressive - but, they're just mundane queens - not full-blown heroes! (for those who haven't seen, they've got good attributes - but only occasionally does someone have anything over 18 (humans), and only rarely a 21. Skills tend to be 80+, but highest weapon skill was only 130% (and that's with a "magic" weapon... meaning, our newly formed characters aren't that far off from these people who would be veterans).

In RQ1/2 versions, I was seeing stats in the numerous hundreds for weapon skills.

So, given we're heading into the Hero Wars, what would be appropriate skill levels? And magic? Why is Harrek almost unbeatable? Just how awesome is Jar-eel? What makes Argrath amazing?

And, of course, how can they pull off what they did?

 Ambitious adventurers need to know!!!

2 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Remind me, Lay worshippers in RQ G can sacrifice for Rune Spells, yes?

No.

At least, not usually.

9 minutes ago, David Scott said:

Pavis is not a good starting example. Wood is scarce in Prax, its mostly stone and adobe construction, however Im sure there's some thatch. The big metropolises would have the problem

I think we have to jump back further in time to the bronze age. Generally speaking many cities were devastated by fire and they just rebuilt on top. If there was fire fighting it seems it was generally ineffective if it caught hold. Regardless of leather bucket chains (if there were enough buckets) Bronze age fire seem devastating.

There's another consideration - The widespread worship of the Lowfires: Mahome has the rune magic of suppress oakfed:

1 point Ranged, Instant, Stackable

This must be cast on a fire. Each point decreases the fire’s diameter by 1 meter. If the size is reduced to nothing, a candle-sized flame remains. One point of this spell reduces the damage done by a Fireblade or Firespear by 1D6, or decreases the damage done by a fire elemental by 1d6. The fire elemental can resist with its own POW vs. the caster’s.

While not perfect, it would likely be helpful in stopping localised fire spreading.

Water elementals while obvious aren't so big and also will flatten stuff.

 

 

Widespread Lay Member worship... not many would go up the ranks to have many points of this spell.

40 minutes ago, Tywyll said:

Yeah I am not a fan of hit locations per se. I find them far too fragile for the 'reality' they are trying to emulate. However, random armor as written is dumb. If armor gives you six points normally you roll a d6? So your armor is categorically worse than usual, even in a full suit? No thanks. I don't understand what's wrong with a flat value.

It makes sense in Bronze Age Glorantha were people are wearing bits of plates covering only bits of the location... Helmets usually don't cover the entire face.

But, it's still silly to me as well... either the armour protects, or it doesn't. 0 or 6. Not a random value in between.

Harnmaster, anyone? D100 for specific hit locations? Hand, wrist, forearm, elbow., upper arm, shoulder....

Given the current official rules for sorcery have Steal Breath, I think it'd be safe to imagine that a Steal Flame would be available, doing something similar - 3 cubic metres of fire (per round!) per level of intensity (2mps).

So, I wonder if this cube can be moved...

13 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Ooh ,ooh I just went to the Runequest Forun Index and saw that Putting Out Fires thread is (insert rimshot here!) HOT!

What, so you're on fire today?

5 hours ago, Richard S. said:

I wonder how Oakfed shamans would feel about it. Would they encourage the blaze or help with the efforts to stop/control it? How would worshipers of the other lowfires or gods like Veskarthan feel? Surely there are gonna be some people who have different feelings about a whole bunch of fire spirits in one place than that they need to go away.

Edit: this is honestly one of the most interesting threads we've had here imo. Talking about how people would deal with more real-world issues in Glorantha is really enlightening. And talking about how issues like this could be used in-game is even better.

Don't worry about Oakfed.. worry about Eurmal! 😛

15 hours ago, Bud's RPG review said:

Wait.  So I can't get into the fine details about the colour of Arkat's boots in these threads?
 

No, those threads will be in his clothes.... 🤣🤣🤣

11 hours ago, lordabdul said:

As a newcomer to the forums and to Glorantha, I have to say there's a fine line between "intimidating well actually'ing" and "fascinating glimpses into how much more detailed Glorantha is", and the difference between the two will most likely vary between people, if only because the written word is so bad at conveying tone. But I still would say "keep it coming!" to the grognards 😋

What I generally find more intimidating and/or confusing is really figuring out where the information is coming from, how authoritative that source is, etc... so I know what to think about it for my Glorantha. I often see big rants about some aspect of some Praxian tribe culture or whatever, all written in a very factual way, and I have no idea where that's from. Maybe it's from the author's own campaigns, maybe it's from some long OOP sourcebook, or some obscure Stafford Library book, I don't know. And the convoluted history of Glorantha-related publications (I recently learned about the term "Gregging" 😅), doesn't help obviously. What does help is that there's definitive word that the Guide To Glorantha is the "baseline" and that this will not change ever -- but of course it's going to take me a looooong time to read and digest it all (but I loooove it, those 2 books are totally awesome).

I started with RQ back in the 80's - mostly RQ2, but also mixing and matching with 1 & 3 (3 had just come out). And, even now, I'm still lost by a lot of this Lore (and I'm using the L because they're all probably things that would fit into Lore skills!). I'm just going through RGQ-Adventure Book with the backgrounds now... (I'm hoping there's going to be some rules adjustments based on some of this info - eg, Narri and Enhyli get more Ride and Herd than others, losing the Farm etc...).

I'm glad when others do some of those 'rants'*, but also give the source!

(*rant meaning - long-winded breakdown/history/correction)

19 hours ago, Kloster said:

The way I have understood (or, more properly, decided, because as you wrote, there is nothing more precise) the rule p 275 is that Associated and Friendly cults are compatible, Enemy and Hostile are not, and Neutral are on a case-by-case basis. My reasoning is based on the descriptions of the 5 categories p311. In the case that concern us (Friendly), the description is: "Even without formal arrangements these groups find each other supportive and agreeable. Meetings are likely to be pleasant.". The term supportive is for me (I'm not a native english speaker and may be wrong) strong enough to allow cooperation to the point of dual initiation. The next level(Neutral) says: "Such cults act according to present circumstance. Trouble may occur, but the spark must be deliberate, not caused by minor squabbles.". The 'present circumstances' is what drove me to the 'case-by-case'. I will not elaborate on the last 3 categories (Enemy, Hostile and Associated) because they seem obvious.

Another point is that I feel that if the author of the rule wanted to have only associated cults to allow dual initiation, he would have written associated, not compatible.

Firstly, the descriptions between the cults given (as in, "likely to be pleasant") isn't about cults per se, but about the adherents of those cults. Your Initiate May Vary 😛

Also, to some extent, it describes how the gods themselves would interact with each other... although the Orlanth/Humakt doesn't help this description, nor do most of the Orlanthi pantheon to Eurmal (mistrust, caution, etc - but still an important Lightbringer)

Secondly, "Associated" means being able to get Rune spells, and to act in others' mythologies... so it goes way beyond the ability to cross initiate. In this sense, because Humakt was an important part of the Orlanthi mythology, cross-initiation should work. However, against that is the idea that Humaktis are supposed to cut off all outside ties, and thus, no association.

5 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

 Could they have survived with out the ritual rebirth?

If they didn't have the rebirth, they'd be dead 😛

6 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Done.

Known issues

• None of the macros work, so fill in your dice rolls or characteristics, skill details, and culture/occupation/cult/personal choices manually.
• Check boxes do not work, so put in a 1 next to the five enhancement spells (cells AA12-AA16) in order to get the small numbers to show.
• Check boxes for skills and runes are just a cell border so are not very easy to see.

Many many many thanks!!!!

7 minutes ago, Joerg said:

The host in the case of Cu Chullain was a poor old widow, and the stew was the only food (ready to eat) in the house.

I witnessed cooking with Bronze Age implements (or Roman Iron Age, i.e. the same except for the blade), and the food you prepare today is tomorrow's soup. Bread is a luxury in the countryside. Putting meat on the table at all is a special honor.

There are dietary geases in Glorantha, so there must be some sort of regular way out for the sunny boys and goths, or a much higher rate of apostasy than I imagined.

It's been  many years since I read "Gods and Fighting Men"...

But, I think that's the whole point about a geas... it makes life difficult, and certainly in Irish myth, you know it's going to get you killed somehow. I'd like to think that Humakt or Yelmalio isn't actually after your death, but just a sign of loyalty and devotion.

The dietary restraint geasa are really fun during times of hardship and droughts

1 minute ago, Joerg said:

If stew is the one and only meal, then dog meat it is, or breach of hospitality.

That was implied in the "if you're not welcome, then you're screwed" bit.

I'd imagine that if you were fully welcome, then the hosts would gladly change out the meal for you.

On 5/1/2019 at 6:03 AM, BWP said:

Huh ... so a significant chunk of errata for the rules, that's been around for nearly a year, and yet there's no way for a new purchaser of the game to find it on the website (unless they read literally every single page; as has been noted before, the Rune Fix page doesn't come up in searches, and why would a new purchaser even think that there might be something to search for?).

It doesn't matter that it's posted in places the "regulars" know about; it needs to be right there, in your face, on the product page, which is the first and only page you would expect a customer to look for this kind of thing.

 

Just to add to that - the term "Rune Fixes" doesn't help the newcomers either.

The usual search term is going to be "errata"... and that doesn't hit anything

Adding those tags would be good.

Not egregious, and not munchkinnery, but I just did the maths on Homeland skill points - if you take High Llama, you're really hurting yourself! Not including the Cultural skill (and sometimes missing Speak Own) which are all the same, the High Llamas are down 10% from most of the other Praxians, and 20% lower than Pol Jonis, and Sartarites.

The best in this respect is Esrolians, who get 185 skill points.

Lunar Tarsh get 175, Sartarites get 165. Old Tarsh gets 155 like most Praxians.

11 hours ago, soltakss said:

Exactly, none of this "I didn't know" or "I was tricked into it" rubbish. You have a geas of "Never refuse Hospitality" and "Never eat dog", what do you do when you get served a cooked dog at a feast? You die horribly.

Well, actually, you state quite clearly early on that Humakt has forbidden you to eat dog meat. Refusing one dish isn't the same as refusing hospitality...

(now, if you're somewhere you're not welcome, then you're screwed!)

Bummer

I don't want Googledocs for a few reasons... not least of all because I'm currently in China, and google requires VPN to work... and that's very iffy.

Also, it means needing an account (I don't like having too many accounts, and Google isn't my friend), and requires constant internet access (ie, not as easily transportable as I'd like). Not having a version I can carry around on my and update any time I feel like it is annoying.

10 hours ago, soltakss said:

No, my RQ rules are better than canon! 🙂

Seriously, HeroQuesting has been woefully underdone in RQ in the past and this kind of ability has never been described before. They just made sense to me and I have used forms of them for years.

That's one thing Mongoose did... if not completely right by everyone's standards, at least there was a working framework in place. (no, I'm not an MRQII fanboi - I'm just acknowledging that there was a mechanic finally done after about 40 years for something that's actually supposed to be a fairly important part of the game and gameworld)

On 4/27/2019 at 5:12 PM, soltakss said:

Some general ideas that we have used in the past:

• Heroic Casting of a Spirit Magic Spell - Casting a particular named Spirit Magic spell costs 0 MPs to cast. The spell has to be linked to something gained on the HeroQuest, for example Bladesharp gained on Humakt Gaining Death, or Sleep gained by a Chalana Arroy HeroQuest or Face of Lanbril gained on the Lanbril Loses his Face HeroQuest.
• Heroic Casting of a Rune Magic Spell - You can cast a particular Runemagic Spell using Magic Points rather than Rune Points. In effect, your POW becomes a secondary Rune Pool for casting particular Runespells. As above, the spell needs to be one gained on a HeroQuest related to that power. So, Humakt gaining Truesword on the Humakt Gains Death spell, Orlanth gaining Lightning in the Lightning Spear Quest and so on.

Are these in canon somewhere? If so, can you please point me in the right direction?

Is there any chance these files can be in a place other than googledocs??

Thx

49 minutes ago, The God Learner said:

Very interesting article, though I think Cúchullain's player would be upset with the GM for setting him up like that.

Any time you take a geas, you just know someone, somewhere, is going to try to screw you with it!

21 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Yep. You're better off doing the occupational experience rolls for 50 seasons.

Except... that's not an option (for character creation - as per RAW).

While I agree we're getting suckered, the fact is that it's for a starting character.. and really, there isn't a race to the end. I think logically, every player would be better off adding a decade or two to their starting character. Unless you're expecting a really long campaign (many many years), it won't have any in-game effects (other than losing 1 pt of a physical attribute).

10 hours ago, g33k said:

Or just call all of them "swords" and rank them as

d3/d4/ d4+1/d6/d6+1/d8/d8+1/d10/d10+1/d12

That's...(counts)10 categories; add more if ya like, I don't think we are up to the canonical "Greatsword" or"2-H Sword" damage, yet...

So divide swords by length&weight, assign them as above, starting e.g. with a "5-10cm knife, 1d3 dmg" and working upward...

The problem with that is that I, personally, think it's pretty inaccurate. It's not really the length that's doing the damage. Thickness obviously plays a big part, and whether you're stabby-stabby, or slashy-slashy (and, against what? Straight flesh? Armours? etc).

While thickness will be incorporated into the weight category, the current RQG rules are giving swords an ENC of only 2 or 3.

Compare Rapier to Shortsword.... one is twice the size of the other, the same ENC... and the same damage.

(besides which, dagger is 1D4+2 😜  Why does a dagger do more damage than a shortsword on average? Don't know!)