7 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Or maybe the elemental was afraid to give an opportunity to the adventurers to "cut" a part of itself, things like that..

There is that as well. 

I suppose if it’s Move is 6, that’s 1.5m/s. 

So with a door of 1x2m, a large elemental of 81m^3 would take 27m to move through the door if it was open. 

If there was a 3mm gap around the door then instead dividing 81 by 2 and that by 1.5, you’d be dividing 81 by 0.018 by 1.5. 

Which is 3,000 seconds. 50 minutes. And Rune Magic lasts 15 minutes. LOL. 

Even with Extension, the elemental would take sooooo much damage in the 200 melee rounds it would be pointless. 

Great thread.

I've done some work on the Marches as I find the area very interesting.

My Glorantha is a bit divergent so not everything may fit more canonical campaigns, but this is an example:

Quote

 

After Refuge fell to Silkinster the Thunderer in 1278ST, he established Marcher County as a protective borderland between Hendrikiland and Prax. He created three new roles that would could be only be filled by Hendriki.

Firstly, the March would be governed by a count appointed by the king. The count, whilst remaining a vassal of the king, would hold Knight’s Fort and the surrounding land in sicut reagle. In other words they would rule without supervision in return for acting as the “king’s right arm” in defending Hendrikiland from attack from the east.

Additionally, with the exclusion of the count’s holdings, the land east of the Bandori Valley was given to those capable of taking it “to have and to hold”. They were to be divided into two classes, freesteaders and freeholders. 

Freesteaders were those capable of keeping a hide of land between the Marcher and Storm Rivers. They would be required to muster to the fyrd if needs be, and to pay a yearly tribute to the count. Beyond that, although remaining nominal vassals to the King - and later the appointed Governor of Heortland - they were free.

Freeholders were those who were able to keep at least five hides of land and who could build a fortified hold would become freeholders. They would be expected to keep a small garrison and defend their lands, as well as answering to the count’s muster. The tenants who farmed their lands would be under their protection, and the freeholder would pay a yearly tribute to the count based on the amount of land they held and the size of the garrison they maintained. As with the count, they would also rule sicut reagle, giving them an unusual level of freedom provided they defended the land from invaders from the east. The most powerful of the freeholders have become to be known as barons, although the title has no real meaning. The count and the barons are known collectively as the Lords of the March.

The coming of Belintar almost forty years later brought great changes to Hendrikiland, but little to the March itself. King Andrin the Stouthearted of the Hendrikings was defeated by the God King, then resurrected to become Belintar’s first governor of the renamed Heortland, now part of the Holy Country, along with the other lands Belintar had conquered around the Choralinthor Bay.

The laws of Belintar brought welcome civilisation and peace to many. The incessant tribal squabbling and raiding that was accepted as tradition under the Hendriki kings was proscribed. The influence of Esrolia to the west of the Choralinthor Bay brought further changes, most chiefly a greater freedom for women. And the long-oppressed Esulvari rose to prominence in the government of Heortland, free as they were of the petty tribal prejudices of their former oppressors. The changes sat ill with the more traditional Hendriki, and the trickle of settlers to Dragon Pass in the north increased to a steady stream. The land, devoid of human life for almost two-hundred years since the Dragonkill, offered people the chance to claim lands on which they could retain their traditional ways. In time, this led to the creation of the Kingdom of Sartar (in 1492 ST).

Others took advantage of the opportunities offered by the March, as now anyone who recognised the supremacy of Belintar could could carve out a slice of land to hold as their own in the March – or take it from those not strong enough to keep what they had built. Belintar saw emigration to what became Sartar as a way get rid of potentially troublesome people, and the March as a useful way to channel the energy of ambitious and equally potentially troublesome people, well aware that those who excelled in the March would often prove to be of worth to him elsewhere.

 

My theory is that Glorantha is actually a massive online multiplayer rpg game

On 6/8/2020 at 4:43 PM, HierophantX said:

My interpretation of Glorantha is that it’s all a simulation possibly run by dragons (or beings so advanced -like computer programmers- that the little progs in the machine can only understand them as dragons) and the Godlearner secret is that it’s all a game and they learned the code behind the Matrix.

Kinda like my one:

PCs are NPCs in a massive multiplayer online game in the future where NPCs have AI. Illumination is realising this.

Can water elementals fit through tiny gaps? As they can be damaged I feel they have more substance than water itself and therefore cannot fit in through as tiny a space as water can.

My players recently got trapped in a room with only one exit, namely a very sturdy door which cannot be opened from inside. Some of you may recognise the scenario but I'll not say which to avoid spoiling the fun.

They had run in there because they were running from water elemental. The size of the water elemental was considerably greater than that of the room, but I decided that the water elemental could not 'squeeze' in through the edges of what was meant to be a very sturdy door, as let's face it, it would not be MGF to potentially kill a few players.

But in normal circumstances I might have decided otherwise.

What do you think?

For me it's all about a few things:

1. Stirrups. I cannot be arsed to have bronze-ish authenticity down to no stirrups. So one-handed lance at the charge is a thing, which it wasn't really without stirrups. Not entirely sure whether the rules for charge would apply to two-handed weapons without stirrups either.
2. The animals neck. A bison carries it's head low and has compact horns. A rider could swing a two handed weapon and not endanger their mount. A rhino carries its head low, and although it will have a sticky-up horn it's probably safe from the sweep of a two-handed weapon as it is far enough away from where the rider will sit.  However, some two-handed weapons will be useless against target on foot. Imagine swinging a great sword at foot targets from a rhino's back. Other mounts have high head carriage (extremely so in the case of the high llama), and some additionally have horns. With these, a two-handed weapon can be used one side or the other in a melee round but not both, and cannot be used against a target directly in from or on a front diagonal as the neck and or horns is/are in the way, unless it's a thrusting weapon in which case frontal or front diagonal attacks are possible.
3. The dagger axe is vastly over-powered IMO. It's a great axe with a point on the end and a very small bit. 2d6 damage. It can be used two handed against targets on one side or the other in a melee round, including those to the front or front diagonal. If the high llama has a pillion passenger, this is how they do it. It can also be used one-handed like a polo mallet or a lance. That's how a rider would use it. Same skill.

On 10/19/2021 at 8:05 AM, Darius West said:

The notion that you can't use a 2h weapon from a mount is wrong.  It isn't optimal, but it isn't impossible, and training can compensate irl.  I mean, cataphracts used sarissa sized lances in an overhand 2 handed position with no shield, and a bow isn't exactly a one handed weapon, and bastard swords are purpose designed for cavalry use and they are 1h/2h weapons.  If anyone debates the use of a pole-arm from horseback I draw your attention to Guan Di, War God of China and hero of the 3 Kingdoms period who used a guan dao (glaive-like polearm) from horseback, much as samurai used naginata from horseback.

There's a big difference between using a pole weapon two-handed when mounted, and a bladed one, I totally agree. 

I'm not aware of any evidence bastard swords (by which I mean "swords intermediate between a 'pure' arming sword and a 'pure' long sword") were developed for cavalry use. Arming swords had been used for centuries from horseback on foot targets before anything you could call a bastard sword arose. The adoption of the spatha by cavalry was definitely because they were cavalry, as the gladius was not very useful from horseback. 

The longsword itself (terminology with swords is dreadful wooly, I use current usage, "a sword with a hilt suitable for two hands with a blade somewhat longer than an arming sword which was still a useful single-handed weapon") was definitively NOT intended for cavalry use two-handed. It arose as a response to improvements in armour and was secondary weapon used primarily two-handed on foot, with the 'half-sword' grip being best against heavily armoured opponents as it effectively uses the sword as a spear, but only used one-handed when mounted.

39 minutes ago, dumuzid said:

Not quite two years ago, in the last RQ:G game in which I was a player, the players took on secondary characters as the scope of the game expanded.  I was playing an Argan Argar troll, who by that point in the campaign was the king of a small new community on the edge of the Grazelands.  I took on an Esrolian Babeester Gor axe woman as my secondary character for a number of reasons.

The simplest answer to "why a Babeester Gor" is that it's a great combat cult, and from a pure gameplay perspective my group needed a combat monster after our Humakti player left the campaign.  I didn't want to play a Humakti myself for that role because we'd just had one.  For the purposes of storytelling and mythic resonance though, I really liked the idea of adding a Babs warrior to the group because my troll character was building a cadre of professional warrior-magicians based on the Kimantorings, the professional army of the Kingdom of Night, and I knew that BG axe women were deeply intertwined with that tradition.

Her backstory was that she'd fought against the Lunars in the Esrolian war, followed Argrath east to Pavis, and out in Prax ran seriously afoul of a Bison Tribe khan who did not take the rejection of his marriage proposal reasonably.  She went into Dragon Pass with Argrath in 1627, but split off to join the player community when she heard that her old comrade from Pennel Ford (my troll) was now king of a town that housed a major Earth temple.  She made a natural choice for the town's martial champion, among its existing cohort of Old Tarshite axe women.  She beheaded a chaotic great troll champion in single combat when mercenaries from the Lunar Empire invaded our valley, and made friends with the ghost of a Vingkotling king.

The community's primary war spirit was a local river demigoddess, a daughter of Shargash and the Oslir river.  In the finale of that campaign, with the demigoddess's guidance, my axe woman swore a marriage vow to Shargash in exchange for even greater martial power to defend the great earth temple at Heruvernalda, and so ended the campaign as a sort of Esrolian Marazi Amazon.

And this ^^^ is immersive and sincere and knowledgable.

Wouldn't dream of denying it.

I would also want to know why someone would want to play a dragonewt or elf or troll.

I'm fine with character ideas as long as they are not basically treating the the non-human character as some kind of rubber suit with a zipper down the back. You want to be a troll? Play a troll. Etc..

13 hours ago, jenh said:

I feel certain that I'm going to regret asking this and gaining fresh causes of disappointment, but what problems in the portrayal of BG followers do (too many) men fall into? Or should I just be grateful that I can't think what a parody would look like?

I am extrapolating the way I have seen guys play female characters. There's a tendency for them to end up like a grown-up version of Mathilde from 'The Professional' in which Leon did not die and trained her, with various tropes added (on top of beautiful & deadly, men-hating, overly-sexualised, perpetually under-dressed, with even more offensive depictions of sexual orientation or kink). Someone could take that forumla and make a BG character a joke.

The girl in my PC group has it judged perfectly. Probably plays to her cult's 'type' better than the other people round the table, and she actually 'read ahead' and chose BG as I was not offering that as an initial option given where the campaign started, but as she was like "I wanna be BG", I was cool with changing that.

I should say I am thinking when I was a teenager. With my current group, most of them played women in the last (Pathfinder) campaign but in a kind of they just happen to be female way that wasn't offensive.

Maybe now as an adult playing with adults and with RPGs having matured a bit, let alone other attitudes, it would be different.

But my first question to a guy wanting to play BG or Vinga would be, why? 

Eh, well I have two teenage (15/16) girls in my player group.

So Uleria is the goddess of seamstresses and seamsters... if they read Pratchett they'll get the joke and will therefore old enough to, but I'd still not play it as the canonical cult as, just no. Inappropriate. 

And broo... even without minors at the table I'm not overly enamoured with their method of reproduction. Something that could actually be genuinely uncomfortable for people with good reason doesn't fit in.

So, IMG, being broo is a parasitical disease.

Broo are asexual and produce eggs internally. These hatch into larvae that migrate to the digestive tract. Unless the broo regurgitate the larvae, they are consumed from within, the larvae pupating and then erupting from the broo as an immature broo, often killing the host. They will carry certain characteristics of their host.

So broo are rather driven to get rid of the larvae, which they do by capturing substitute hosts, which they then vomit the larvae into.

They then grow inside their new host's digestive tract. As they grow they will slowly change the host's behaviour to allow the developing larvae the maximum chance of survival; male hosts will become gluttons, which can explain the distention of the abdomen characteristic of broo parasite near pupation. Female hosts will stop menstruating, for similar reasons. If the host is threatened they will flee, either seeking out broo (broo will recognise the host as such), or hiding away apart from raids on local habitations for food. Eventually the larvae will pupate and seven days later drive the host to seek solitude so they can erupt from their abdomen in safety. As with instances where a parasite develops inside a broo, the broo will take certain characteristics from the host, but basically it will be an anthropoid with horns either of a goat (if a human, elf, troll or dwarf was the host) or of the host species (although hornless broo are known from instances where they, for example, parasitise predators), but always unmistakably broo unless Chaos says otherwise.

My immature imago broo are nasty and fast, quite capable of severely injuring or killing the unwary and unarmed who get in their way when they seek isolation were they predate on anything they can kill. They kill, eat and sleep and reach adult size with a year if there is enough food.

This nicely avoids the rape-y aspects of canon broo, and fits in well with their Malia focus. It also means if broo raid small settlement and infect all the men, women and children there, they will then go on with their daily activity until they all gather together in a barn or some such whilst the larvae within pupate, all emerging within a minute of each other. Which gives wonderful scenario for PC's. And yes, of course I've seen Alien/s.

On 11/10/2017 at 11:34 AM, Joerg said:

Babeester Gor cultists in the party. A non-chaotic subcult of Thed... nothing wrong with Earth Axe women, whether as hunters or as bodyguards, or people clad in trophies of vanquished foes, but I don't need this cult as played by too many (male) players.

One of my current players is a very axe-solves-problems Babeestor Gory (sic).

She's sixteen. Has actually transitioned from Pathfinder to RQ better than most of the (much older men including her dad) players after I took over as GM at the end of a PF campaign.

But, yes, I think that guy's should normally not tread there unless they are going to play with sincerity rather than as some kind of parody.

Is the crucification-stops-ressurection thing actual canon?

Obviously doesn't work here on round world, button the lozenge?

I think the imagery of women is pretty OK in Chaosium’s RQG publications.

I mean, look. Women wearing practical clothes or armour and standing like people. As opposed to what the hell and tilt hip.

Yes there are bare chests which means bare breasts with women. But most cultures didn’t sexualise bare breasts in the way the West has sexualised them to the extent they are regarded as sexual display no matter what the context.

As far as boob plate goes, the number of female warriors in periods where hard metal breast plates were a predominant for of armour was low.

In periods where reappraisal of graves identified as warriors is leading us to believe there were noticeable numbers of female warriors, the armour of the period (for example, maille) would be largely indistinguishable between male and female warriors.

In modern settings where women are fighting in hard contact fight sports it’s not a thing for the reasons already stated.

IMG there’s no size difference between male and female humans so in many cultures women warriors are commonplace.  

I think the only obviously female ‘armour’ IMG is the gold ceremonial armour d’amour of priestesses of Uleria. And everyone who grew up with Star Wars knows exactly what that looks like. 😜

On 6/8/2020 at 7:48 PM, pachristian said:

Also:

Genertela is actually post-holocaust North America. All that business about it being a flat world is just "we present it this way in publications because that's what your characters believe". 

I vacillate between the cosmology and mythology being just as scientifically accurate as it was in the Bronze Age world (it’s a world mundane as ours but with the addition of magic, a real after life, and the ability of people to be apotheosised by gaining vast magical power), and Glorantha being a computer simulation of such advanced scale the background characters are self-aware. And it’s only gods and hero’s who are ‘real’, albeit 12 year olds playing online from Milwaukee. 
 

I’ve just got in my mind this grand reveal after a five year long campaign where they gain access to some kind of feed in the Clanking Ruins where they can see the webcam feeds of actual players...

Problem with the theory of Runic attraction is that without the use of magic, an Orlanthi priest and and Erithean priestess hit the ground at exactly the same time if you push them of a cliff together. 
 

Source; God Leaner scroll 67BD, “On the nature of falling”, Lhankor May library at Jansholm. 

On 3/31/2021 at 9:46 PM, French Desperate WindChild said:

mmm not sure

a dog is able to understand if the "thing" in front of it is human or dog, so maybe it is able to show that the beasts (more than 2 but less than a big troop) are like the llama you have and not like the bison you have. But of course, if you have no llama to show it, it will be difficult to define if it is a llama, an impala or an horse.

It is probably able to decide that is not a lizard or a rhino, by some distinct characteristic (blood, armor...)

 

 

Dogs can differentiate between sheep, horses, cattle, rabbits, birds... so if it's in an environment where the creature is known, it'll know what it is. Doesn't;t need to see one.

Their counting is rudimentary. My bitch knows she has puppies. She has no idea how many. When we change the bedding in the whelping box and have out all the puppies back in the fresh whelping box she will check the blanket we put it in unless we wave it in the air and show her there are no puppies in it.

But if a dog gets to use non-dog language on a regular basis then it can learn a lot.

https://www.theverge.com/21557375/bunny-the-dog-talks-researchers-animal-cognition-language-tiktok

Bunny recently came up with "I dog", and then the next day asked "Why dog?".

They don't have INT, they might understand something but replying? 

A dog will sit but won't be be able to tell you a party of 5 Llama riders passed this way five hours ago. But 'Llama riders pass since last sleep'? Maybe.

On 3/19/2021 at 10:46 AM, French Desperate WindChild said:

If I may make a suggestion :

do not randomize ( generate app or dice roll) for npcs : put what you want depending on the pc and the danger the npc should be

you will save time (what about a rolled npc too powerful , or not engouh ?) and see only the stats you need

 

I agree. In fact, I'd say that 95% of NPC - all but star NPCs - can be boiled down to maybe six stat sets if you allow 'low, average, high' values for physical and magical characteristics, and then maybe assigning 25 or 50 or 75 or 95% in chosen weapon skills and adding spells to suit.

PCs will neither or care trollkin 7 has an INT of 3 and a CON of 12, but trollkin 3 has INT 10 and CON 2...

12 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Do you know if there are any features that won't work in Google Sheets?

The filter can be made to work by removing it and reapplying it selecting the cells A8:A97.

I know nothing about Google sheets so couldn't say but the formulas in it are pretty basic.

Good tip about the filter I will try it. Ta!

Here is a finished version of the battlesheet I have been working on.

It caters for most hit location tables (in various tabs), and allows a GM to run a group of NPCs in an efficient and easy fashion if you know even a bit of Excel.

There's also no reason why it can be used by players.

Just plug in characteristics into the salmon-coloured cells and the black cells will automatically calculate. The cells for current HP will change colour to indicate disablement, unconsciousness, impending death or death.

There are helpful notes on the sheets to help you get going.

Enjoy!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ob8QT4SovIo9MRcjhBy71ncu_4s33rLr/view?usp=sharing

OK, here's the updated version. Available to download here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_Rgo-diPcwXW5iZnN6xUzjHrd4A_S6dj/view?usp=sharing

Lots of changes based on feedback.

Current HPs now change colour according to the amount of damage, there's less white space, etc. You can use filter to remove the un-needed lines.

The light red highlight cells need input, the black cells with white text auto calculate.

Be good if people can give me more feedback.

1 hour ago, lordabdul said:

We'd need access to it to play with it before giving feedback 😉 

My first reaction was "oh, landscape orientation?". I'm used to stat blocks, with a more compact layout. But I guess that could work too depending on how you usually organize your screens and windows.

My next reaction was how "full featured" this seems to be. This may be good for a big bad evil NPC, but I think for the vast majority of combats I would use only a third of what you have there. But if you say you can hide the bottom half, for example, that's pretty good, and solves some of that, for when you just want the party to fight a handful of scorpionmen or wild animals.

Nice work!

I’m going to share the next version. 

This is only envisaged as a digital version to be used on a second screen for VTT or as a laptop on the side for IRL. So thus the landscape format. 

resurrected duck got me to thinking and I’ve reduced the width by compacting things which means magic is not below but next to weapons stats reducing the row count. 

On 3/1/2021 at 2:18 PM, Smokebadger said:

Yes I agree but its all to do with the primitive layering , Ive got new versions and tools now , aka dungeondraft. Hope people have a use for it

 

They do! I'm just setting up in Roll20 to run Borderlands so this is great. Thanks for your hard work!!

16 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Storm Bull: ”You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”

I think the shorter version ("You wouldn’t like me") is probably enough.

I like crunchy.

This extends to SIZ too.

For me, SIZ of an anthropoid is the presented target area and won't change appreciably if it gains strength. I'm a little shorter than most Running Backs, but 20kg lighter, but it's gonna be about the same chance of hitting me or the Running Back if we'd just stand there and take the hit.

But if you have a higher or lower STR than average you gain or lose weight. That impacts things like knockbacks.

But here are my house rules.

Anthropoid SIZ height and weight.

All characters are considered to live active life-styles and have an ideal weight for their height if they are average STR for their species, as per the standard SIZ/weight/height table.

For the occasional sedentary character who has put on weight, add a +x (where x is the number of SIZ's they are overweight) as a subscript to the character record, and a - x as subscript to CON of the same amount on the record.

For characters that are underfed for long periods, the subscript would be -x n SIZ and CON.

As a rule of thumb, +1 is mildly overweight, +2 is overweight, +3 is obese, +4 is morbidly obese. Mildly overweight carries no penalties. Overweight reduces MOV by 1 and ENC to 80%. Obese has the same penalties as overweight plus the addition of the character always being Fatigue 1. Morbidly obese reduces MOV by 2, limits ENC as before, and means the character is always at least fatigue 2. Negative values for undernourished characters carry the same penalties.

Characters with above average STR will be heavier than average for their height - see below for details as this varies by species.

Elves are lightly built and will be the height of a human 1 SIZ larger than their weight would indicate. An elf will be 1 SIZ heavier for every point of STR above 11.

Baboons are 1 SIZ shorter than a human of the same weight, but cannot really stand fully erect, choosing to walk on all fours almost all the time. Baboons over SIZ 13 are 2 SIZ shorter than a human of the same weight, Baboons over SIZ 15 are 3 SIZ shorter than a human of the same weight. A baboon will be 1 SIZ heavier for every point of STR above 20.

Humans will be 1 SIZ heavier for every point of STR above 12. Agimori will be 1 STR heavier for every point of STR above 20. Tusk Riders should be treated as humans for the purposes of this calculation.

Many Mostali are heavily built compared to humans. Those of SIZ 2-3 are as tall as indicated, but those from SIZ 4-5 are 1 SIZ less in height than indicated, from SIZ 6-7 are 2 SIZ less in height than indicated, from SIZ 8-9 are 3 SIZ less in height than indicated, from SIZ 10-11 are 4 SIZ less in height than indicated, and at SIZ 12 are 5 SIZ less in height than indicated. Mostali will be 1 SIZ heavier for every point of STR above 18.

Dark trolls are heavily built and will be the height of a human 3 SIZ less than their SIZ would indicate, but any lack of height is compensated for by breadth when considering SIZ for the purposes of resolving a hit.  They will be 1 STR heavier for every point of STR above 17. Great Trolls will be 1 STR heavier for every point of STR above 26. Trollkin will be 1 STR heavier for every point of STR above 10.

Any other anthropoid species, including those with tails, will be 1 STR heavier for every point of STR above the average of the species.

Characters who are below average STR will have lose weight at half the rate for each point of STR below the above given figure. So if they would be one SIZ heavier for every point of STR above average, they will be one SIZ lighter for every two points of STR below average.

Any excess or deficit of weight for the characters SIZ due to STR should be noted as positive or negative superscript to the characters SIZ