Imryn

I really thought the answer to the question I posed was self evident, but never mind. My answer to my question is to fix the ignorance through better education and to not change the definition of the word. Laziness is harder to fix, but I would not change the language to accommodate it.

Well, if everyone is using their own definition of what matriarchy means, and nobody is willing to take any other definition, even as a starting point for further discussion, then this thread seems to be pretty pointless.

I think you should take a close look at yourself before accusing someone else of lacking basic civility. I fully understand that a living language is something that changes and evolves over time, and understand that the people that maintain the dictionaries need to continually update their publications to keep abreast of these changes. OTOH when a word is being misused out of laziness or ignorance should the definition of the word be changed? In particular, when a word is hijacked by a group of feminist anthropologists who decide to re-define it to mean something different, should the dictionary be changed to accommodate them, thereby changing the work of every anthropologist who came before them by altering the meaning of a word they may have used? For all we know this may have been a deliberate ploy by those feminist anthropologists to co-opt their predecessors work by linguistic manipulation. Words that are commonly used can change and evolve freely over time. Words that are specific to scholarly work should have fixed definitions in order to preserve the work of the scholars that use them. These words might very well be misused in common usage, but that should not alter their definition. Command of the English language is not a class issue or a race issue, it is an educational issue. The accent you have when speaking the words is irrelevant, as long as you use the words correctly. It used to be that people took pride in using language correctly, in being able to express themselves with eloquence and clarity, but no more apparently. I really think the "hellworld" you exist in is entirely of your own making. Finally, learn to recognise a joke when you see one!

The word "matriarchy" is the inverse of a "patriarchy" with the gender roles reversed. Everything else is implicit in that statement. I am making no assumptions about a female society; use of the word "matriarchy" to describe a society carries all of the assumptions with it. If you don't like the assumptions you should use a word that better describes the society you are describing. Not a matriarchy. 1. The woman is not in a position of power. The power belongs to the man. The woman is in a position of influence, not power. 2. A matriarchy requires most positions of power be occupied by women, not just one. Is the UK under Queen Elizabeth a matriarchy? Or with Theresa May as PM? No of course it isn't. There is only one valid model of a "Matriarchy". There are many possible social structures for societies with women in positions of power, its just that only one of them is called a Matriarchy. If you want to describe a different social structure use a word that correctly describes it, don't use a word that describes something different and insist that it now means what you want it to mean.

The word "Matriarchy" was created as the inverse of a "Patriarchy". It was not created to represent some other different structure or way of doing things. It is not based on any real world example, although the ancient Amazon's were probably of some influence (and there is precious little evidence that they even existed and even less on their social structure). The word carries all of the same baggage as the word "Patriarchy" but with the gender roles reversed. Having a powerful woman controlling a male king from behind the scenes is not a matriarchy. Having leadership by consensus is not a matriarchy. Having equal opportunities for both genders is not a matriarchy. Each of these scenarios have their own word to describe them. The post feminist vision of how a society run by women would function, is charming and terribly idealistic. Leadership by consensus , with everyone's views being heard and no decisions being made until everyone is in agreement is utterly unworkable, even in a fantasy world. Anyone who has worked for a female CEO can tell you that there is not much difference between men and women in positions of power. The females might not chase the secretaries quite as much, and they might be a bit less aggressive in the way they deal with people, but at the end of the day they are in charge and expect to be obeyed.

It might be useful if I present what I think these two words mean. I don't want to get into a discussion about whether I am right or wrong, but would like to present them as a starting point for the rest of you to use in this interesting discussion Matriarchy: A social structure where the majority of positions of power are occupied by women. There may be a few areas where men can hold positions of power but these would be limited and there would be a pronounced prejudice, and probably laws, against men gaining power outside these niches. Matrilineal: Tracing ones ancestry through the female line only. More common in ancient times when the only parent that was certain was the mother, and the identity of a child's father was based on trust and wishful thinking. Probably less accurate in magical Glorantha than it is in the real world.

That is a really terrible definition as It is confusing "matriarchal" and "matrilineal". I would suggest getting a better dictionary, but they all seem to have taken up this horrible trend of altering the definition of words based on current "popular" usage. The English language is being steadily debased by ill-educated morons who misuse words. The answer? Get hold of a printed dictionary from about 1950 or 60 - the good old days when academics were complete snobs and didn't pander to the ignorant unwashed masses

I think this is the heart of the problem here - these two words are directly linked in the english language - "matriarchy is patriarchy with inverted gender roles" exactly describes the relationship between the two words and the ideas they embody. If you want to describe a society with a different structure you have to use a different word to describe it.

That's also a valid way to play it. The problem, in my experience, is that the play session can bog down with players making constant checks on whether this food or that drink is kosher. I would drop it in occasionally, and make it an event that requires roleplaying such as a welcome drink when meeting an important chieftain that may or may not be alcoholic, but otherwise not allow it to slow down play. I know we differ on this, but in my opinion if geases can be broken under circumstances where the player has absolutely no chance of resisting it the cults with geases are unplayable. Your example is actually a case of players conspiring. If the character is part of a group and the group sets an ambush the character is a participant, whether they act or not. I would expect the geased character to prevent the ambush or consider it a voluntary break (case 5). The concept of "resistance" can be a slippery slope. The further the character walks down the slope before he resists the harder it will be to recover. Practically speaking, I would scale the difficulty of the path back in proportion to the precautions the character took (or could have taken, but didn't). Well, DI was only suggested as a possibility, and I did say that there could be others. A Heroquest, perhaps? This is where you and I really differ. The way you GM geases makes the cults that have them unplayable, as you readily admit. In my opinion the game designers wouldn't have wasted their time creating these cults if they expected them to be unplayable, ergo your way of GM'ing them is not the way the game designers intended them to be GM'ed. You can do what you like in your own games, of course, but constantly advocating here for others to adopt your methods is undermining what the game designers seem to have intended.

I've thought about this for a while, and it does make some sense; except why do only a handful of cults have it? If it was to show devotion then all cults should have it, or we should have some explanation of why these particular cults have a greater requirement than the others.

Well, you haven't mentioned any other cults that you like to destroy characters who join them, and I've been meaning to ask if you are an equal opportunity character destroyer or not. The fact that you expect magical identification of an opponent to be an advantage comes as no surprise - remind me which cults are good at that again... I assume you mean Sword Trance plus 10 mp and True Sword? Double weapon damage (that penetrates armor - you forgot that bit) is, as you note, transferable so your Humakti follower / meatshield (your preferred role for them) can give it to you. Sword trance is ok, but if played like arrow trace its not great. So using DI to avoid death blows is somehow exclusive to Humakti Rune Lords? Every other cult that has Rune Lords does exactly the same thing, and then goes on to use resurrection as well. Of course, Lhankor Mhy doesn't have any rune lords; unless your special subcult does? I have never said that geases shouldn't be tested. I have said that the testing should be commensurate with the associated gift. Testing does not have to be destruction testing; you do not need to destroy the character to do it. There is nothing in the cult description that requires Humakti to be suicidal, nothing that requires them to seek death; they are required to dispense death, as and where appropriate. "To his followers, Humakt is a frightening but necessary agent of eternal change who can be used in a courageous and noble way to preserve the world." If any of the gifts approached Samsons gift I might agree with you - maybe permanent 100 STR in RQG terms? They don't, they are pathetic. 1 point of STR? Please, how can that justify destruction testing the character? So no published RQ rules for them? You must have made up some rules if you play them, so how about you share them with us? I assumed they had spirit magic - everyone does. So spirit magic, rune magic, sorcery (if you want), and you get to add lore skills to weapon skills as positive modifiers. No Rune Lord DI (that's a shame) unless you happen to have made them Lhankor Mhy Rune Lords in your personal rules... Sword trance is OK, but situational if played as per arrow trance; Shield and True weapon are transferable so your meatshield can give you them. That leaves Sever Spirit. 1d6 damage. Wow that's some advantage the Humakti has. But they are traveling in pursuit of knowledge, not serving a death cult, so that makes everything better. Just out of curiosity, is there any difference that an outside observer would notice when your Sword Sage loots a tomb, compared to when a Humakti loots a tomb. Oh I almost forgot Someone needs to remind me again why Humakti are overpowered. You are too modest. Your Sword Sages have personal spirit and rune magic, and access to sorcery. You don't need illumination to get access to resurrection because you already have that, but you might need it to get the shapechanger abilities, and seeing as you wrote the rules using spears instead of swords doesn't seem to present much of a problem.

I have been trying to track down references to the Hevduran sub cult you mentioned, but outside a thread here about home brewed Lhankor Mhy rune magic I can't find anything. From what I can tell this Lhankor Mhy subcult would give you access to sorcery, and rune magic and allow you to use your lore skills as positive modifiers on weapon skill roles? If I was looking for a cult to top the list of "overpowered" ones this would be number one.

In peace time. I have been reading through the HQ rules and the background stuff for Sartar, the coming storm and the eleven lights, and I came across something interesting. Apparently, in the past the cult of Humakt was able to field many battalions of up to 1000 men but in recent memory these battalions have shrunk to a few dozen men or less. I have a theory. The kingdom of Sartar is nothing but a bunch of Orlanthi tribes that agreed to work together, and an Orlanthi tribe is nothing but a group of clans that agreed to work together. Orlanthi clans are opportunistic and always look out for themselves and loyalty is always clan first, tribe second and kingdom a distant third. When faced with an enemy like the Lunar empire every clan is looking either to fight or to cut a deal , and sometimes both. The kingdom is divided by conflicting clan loyalties and the lunars are able to easily maintain control by playing clans off against each other. When Sartari leaders are able to put together enough clans to be a threat the lunars are able to buy off enough clan leaders to beat them. The individual Orlanthi clan warrior is a cattle raider, not a soldier, and has no clue how to fight against Lunar regular troops. Each clan has a small number of thanes who might have a clue, but the warriors they lead are not disciplined enough for them to be effective. The Orlanthi warriors and thanes experience of fighting against the Lunars is their "allies" betraying them and their generals having no clue how to fight regular troops. In peace time the commitment and discipline that Humakt requires is anathema to the free spirited Orlanthi warrior. Once he has taken part in a few "glorious" attacks on disciplined Lunar phalanxes he might come to see the benefit of such discipline. My theory is that as the Orlanthi resistance grows the numbers of warriors willing to place themselves under Humakti discipline will grow very fast as the fighting heats up. And probably shrink again just as fast when the Lunars are driven out of Sartar.

I am still not sure why you are so down on Humakti. They are not invulnerable, they are not overpowered, they are (to some extent) killing machines, however that is a result of the cults focus and not the result of any useless "gifts". To compensate for any advantage they may have they are already playing for higher stakes than any other cult in every battle they fight. No resurrection is a huge disadvantage when you compare them to any other cult. Manoeuvring them into lose/lose scenarios just to test geases that they have no choice about is grotesque. Its not a test if there is no pass mark, its just torture. Give them a test where they can "win" even if the price of winning is high, and I can understand, but a lose/lose "test" is pointless. If Glorantha worked they way you want there would be no cult of Humakt - shoot enough initiates in the head and eventually people will stop signing up. There is such a cult, so it follows that the vast bulk of Humakti are not subjected to your lose/lose tests, just the ones unlucky enough to be GM'd by you.

If I am reading this correctly you are advocating deliberately forcing a character into a lose / lose situation that will irrevocably damage or destroy the character. How is that a proportional response to a worthless gift? What that looks like to me is just persecution of a cult you don't like. In my experience of role playing the best experience is when the GM and the players both have a say in the world and the way the characters interact with it. As a GM I would never force that situation on a player, and as a player I would walk away from the table of a GM that heavy handed and dictatorial. And the GM would be lucky I just walked away. I think you would be better off banning the cults you don't like from the get go than behaving like this.

Taking a deep breath, and a step back, I would like to explain my thoughts about both gifts and geases, and the testing / breaking of them. In RQ2 gifts were quite powerful benefits. The main reason for this was that characters started at a very early point in their careers and were years away from attaining Rune Lord status. With the new character generation system in RQG it is quite easy to create a character who is, if not already qualified, very close to attaining Rune Lord status. Once a character has access to Rune Lord DI they can get all (or most) of the gifts with no cost. There may be some gifts that are exclusive to certain gods (perhaps Humakt is the only god who can grant sense assassin?) but that is for each GM to determine, and the majority (all stat increases, cult skill increases, additional weapon damage and HP) should be available to any Rune Lord in any cult. Thus, the benefit gained from a gift in RQG is now minor and other characters who are in cults without gifts will very quickly catch up. The benefit gained from the gift is small and fleeting, so the cost of that gift should be commensurate. All of the geases are described very briefly. Some, like "wear no armor on 1 location", are very clear in their intention and scope. Others, as our discussions here have shown, are less clear and must be better defined by the GM in order to play them properly. The vast majority of the geases can be broken by the GM effortlessly. As has been repeatedly mentioned you can have a character knocked unconscious and then break almost any geas. Strap armor on their unarmored leg, put them on a horse, feed them vegetables (cooked and uncooked), meat, fish, fowl etc etc etc. But is this commensurate with the benefit gained? I am not proposing that geases should not be tested, but I am saying that the testing and the consequences for failure should be proportional to the benefit gained from the gift. In my Glorantha i adopt the following policies: Geases cannot be broken accidentally. The character is assumed to be following the strictures during all mundane events. Where an action would break a geas the GM will warn the player. Geases cannot be broken involuntarily. If the character is unable to resist the action that breaks the geas it doesn't count. This does not mean that the situation is just ignored, it means that the situation is resolved through roleplaying contrition, confession, penance etc. Players conspiring to contrive circumstances to evade geas restrictions do not count as involuntary. Testing geases is appropriate and required. The player should be placed in situations that require them to sacrifice something of value to maintain the geas. This testing should take place early in the characters career and should become less frequent as the character advances in their career; proportional to the current benefit of the associated gift. Breaking a geas (1). Testing a geas may involve requiring the player to make a choice, but it may also require actions such as resistance rolls etc. In the case where the player attempts to resist the action that breaks the geas, but fails, the geas is broken. The character suffers the consequences of the broken geas, however as they did attempt to resist there should be a path for them to regain their gods favour. A difficult path, but a path none the less. Breaking a geas (2). If a player chooses to break a geas deliberately the character suffers the consequences of the broken geas. It is up to the GM to decide if there is any way to regain the gods favour, but if a path is offered it should be tantamount to suicide. Removing a geas. There will come a time in the characters career when the benefit of the gift becomes negligible, and some mechanism should exist whereby the character can be released from the geas. One possibility is to use DI to remove the geas (and associated gift). Other possibilities exist, I am sure. Characters should not be condemned to suffer under geases that are being constantly and harshly tested by the GM just for the minor benefit of gifts that are unavoidable, soon worthless and never worth the price demanded for them. I don't understand why you think Humakti are "insanely strong" or "overpowered killing machines". I don't see anything in their cult or their rune magic that justifies that characterisation - Sever Spirit is the only spell that stands out and that has been given a hard nerf; to the point that its not worth casting it on anyone but a red shirt (and a waste of 3 rp then). I agree that they are ultimately doomed, but the restriction on resurrection guarantees that without any further help. I wondered why you made the comment about Humakti cult skills having check boxes, then I saw what your favorite "fighter" was. Talk about wanting to have everything! So sorry that your super duper sword fighting sage character has to develop his knowledge based skills to advance. Bitter much? Has it occurred to you that specialising in something should allow you to advance faster, and attempting to get the broadest possible range of abilities should make your advancement slower? I suppose if you think a pale 90 lb librarian who learned his sword fighting from a book is a good "fighter" then your description of Humakti as overpowered killing machines is a bit more understandable

In the real world context we are each making our arguments based on different starting conditions. You are taking the christian churches stated position and intentions and proceeding from there. I am ignoring their stated position and intentions and basing my argument on what I think there actual intentions were. Thus, we are never going to come to any resolution. I agree with your comments about rape in runequest above. I can imagine even including the scenario you sketched out if my players were comfortable with it. The key factor being that it is a scenario where the player has a chance to resist. That was NOT the scenario presented in the other thread - That scenario was of an unconscious character raped by her captors. Entirely outside the players control the GM just announces "Oh btw your character just got raped by 50 bandits; so you lost your gifts and your god is pissed at you so good luck casting rune magic and your unicorn ran off". Rune Lord DI isn't just limited to Humakt and Yelmalio - every RL gets it so every RL can get the same gifts as Humakti / Yelmalio and as you pointed out the Humakti / Yelmalio characters are at a disadvantage because the had to take gifts and geases along the way. The gifts were very powerful in RQ2 when starting characters were years away from RL status, but in RQG they are a curse, giving access to abilities a couple of seasons of game time early but at a ridiculously high cost.

If you think I am upset about geases in general then you aren't paying attention. What I am getting heated about is the blithe assumption that its fine to further victimise a rape victim that is being expressed in this forum. For that matter I am also upset that anyone here could propose having a character raped just to break a geas. Not what @Joerg said at all. What he said was that if a player creates a character with gifts and geases they are daring him to break the geas. As a GM this is trivially easy, so what he is saying is that in his Glorantha if you try to play a cult with gifts and geases he will simply destroy your character. I recall he said in one of his reply's to me in another thread that he had never played a Humakt character and never had one in a game he GM'ed. That makes more sense to me now. The fact that you DON'T see a difference between having an unconscious character thrown over a horse to break a geas, and having an unconscious character raped and then using the fact of that rape to further victimise them appals me. The fact that your mind can even go there, and then you see nothing wrong with expressing that thought in a public forum, tells me everything I need to know about you.

Ah ok, sorry I get it now. Forget about the fact that players are forced to accept gifts and geases if they want to play certain cults, you, as GM, see that as a challenge that means you have to force them to break the geas by any means possible. I didn't realise that Humakt was such an OP cult. I suppose since they are so OP they should be punished, it stands to reason, and at least you don't have to worry about them resurrecting right? Only have to kill of the pesky OP so-and-so's the once!

The requirement of celibacy was adopted long before that period. If anything, that period in the catholic church's history serves to illustrate how little the church enforced the vow. The one who takes, and then breaks the vow is not punished. The person who takes no such vow is brutally punished. Sounds fair to me. Sure, I know that, and to be honest playing around with some of those concepts can be fun. For me, further victimising a rape victim, even in an imaginary fantasy game setting isn't fun. If a vow of celibacy exclusively prevented marriage then I would agree. The purpose of the vow is to prevent the priest from being subject to earthly temptations and earthly control. That includes marriage, and it includes sexual relations, but its purpose is to sever connections. I feel that the "Feel no Love" geas serves the same general purpose. You can still get married, and still have sex, but your partner is denied the level of control over your actions that a loved one would have. A great many of the geases listed are easy to force a character to break if you want to. And none of the gifts are worth the price that can be extracted for that breakage. Everything listed for gifts can be obtained through DI without geases, and RL DI is pretty much available right out of character creation if you make the right choices. Only two cults in RQG have gifts and geases, and both are warrior cults which stress disciple and self control. There are other warrior cults like storm bull would seem to fit the "murder hobo" theme better and without any pesky restrictions. Gor huh? That would be the fantasy world where every woman secretly wants to be raped right?

If you are interpreting the celibacy geas as giving up the pleasures of fornication how on earth do you interpret getting raped as a breach of that geas? Especially raped while unconscious? Please explain which part of the process the victim is supposed to have taken pleasure from.

That might have been the ostensible reason given, but the christian church had a deep seated hatred and fear of women long before that. Women were controlled by so many elements of society that the church didn't need to add any more to persecute them to their hearts content. Women were already property, not people, and women were stoned for adultery (including when they were raped) where men were not punished at all for the same crime. Amongst a whole load of other inequalities. By binding priests to celibacy the church was attempting to make them immune to "temptation" - the church feared women's supposed ability to control men by giving or withholding sexual favours. If the priest broke the vow the woman would be severely punished as a "demon temptress" - the priest would get a penance (a couple of "our fathers" maybe). All in all it was a sordid and disgraceful (and very long) period in our history, and elements of it are still with us today. I don't see any reason why we have to transfer all of that shit stuff into Glorantha. In many ways the authors have obviously attempted to make Glorantha a much more level playing field for sexual equality than the real world ever has been, but this slipped through the net. As I said earlier, I would substitute the "Feel no Love" geas for the celibacy ones as it achieves the same end result without the inherent unfairness.

I am not sure why you would chose this example. Of all the concepts from our world that have been translated across to Glorantha "celibacy" is absolutely the worst realised. In our world the whole concept is wrapped up in the christian churches hatred of women and desire to prevent women from having any form of control over men, and especially church officials. Distrust, and the desire to absolutely control women didn't start with the christian's; controlling reproduction by controlling women has been a key element in a great many religions throughout history. Any slight amount of thought leads to the obvious conclusion that there was never any need to excerpt that type of control over women in Glorantha - If you want to know who fathered the woman's child you just ask her, after casting a truth spell. Putting aside the historical context, the purpose of a "vow of celibacy" is to prevent the person taking the vow from being "corrupted by sins of the flesh". In the real world this refers to the pleasures of fornication, and i suppose from that point of view there is some justification for the same vow being present in Glorantha. What I am not sure about is your interpretation that a rape victim has somehow been "corrupted by sins of the flesh". I have not been raped, however I understand that is anything but pleasurable, and leaves many and varied mental scars. I would like to know just how the unicorn was aware of her change of status - do they conduct an inspection before allowing the rider to mount? Why would the unicorn think the rider was no longer suitable just because they had been assaulted by a rapist? In a world with magical healing that can regrow severed limbs, regrowing a broken hymen is trivial, and for that matter I understand the act of riding a horse can cause the hymen to break even if the rider has never had sex - does a unicorn reject the rider if that happens? Putting aside all of the absurdities, If I was GM I would not bring such a distasteful aspect into my games, and if it somehow did creep in I would certainly not punish the rape victim for the crime - there is way too much of that in the real world for us to also have it in our escapist fantasy world. In my Glorantha the High Priestess would task the woman with hunting down the rapist and his friends and returning their heads and genitals to the temple where they would be prominently displayed, and the unicorn would enthusiastically help with this quest. As a complete aside, I wouldn't use any of the celibacy geases in my Glorantha because I think they are absurd in the real world and utterly absurd in Glorantha. I would substitute the "Feel no love" geas instead which has the same general effect without all the real world overtones.

I think you are making the assumption that the hero in the movie is engaging in a heroquest, and that's a reasonable assumption, but its another place where the comparison between ancient Greek myths and Glorantha breaks down. In Glorantha "mythical" creatures can be encountered in the mundane world. I think the movie might have been Wrath of the Titans (2012) - it had lots of nice special effects but I have no idea how true to myth the script was. Edit: or it might have been Immortals, <shrug>

I watched a movie a while ago - i forget the name - but the hero had to kill the gorgon. He needed to get a sorceress to show him the way to the gorgons cave, and when they got close to it the movie had the very creepiest path imaginable leading up into some hills. I remember thinking "why'd he need a guide?" because the path was that obvious. In Glorantha he would definitely need a guide. When he got to the hills there would be dozens of equally creepy paths leading to different lairs, and all but one would be completely unrelated to his quest. That's where the ancient Greek comparison breaks down for me. Each story has only one myth active in it, only one set of mythical entities and events that are all related to the active story. In my head Glorantha is like having all of those myths active in the same story at the same time and a whole bunch more as well.