g33k

Ooooh, that stings.

I have a hard, HARD time not equating that view of BG as being founded in pretty deep misogyny. They aren't fecund Ernalda breeders, or enjoyable Ulerian lovers, but tasked with protecting female sacred spaces, and revenge upon those who violate those spaces or people, so... of COURSE that's a "psychotic, man-hating" thing ... WTF??!? Yes, they have room to fit in the violence and the rage, in the context of their sacred duties; but that's not what's central or definitional. It's allowed, not required. But a lot of men can be very VERY uncomfortable with women who hold that degree of anger... who act on that degree of anger. That's OK. It's not comfortable; neither is it comfortable when a man does so. Vingan -- the temporary converts -- are entirely about that murderous vengeance. Humakti are equally "cut off from society" (and it's equally problematic as a PC concept; but the same solutions can work for Babs as Humie). But I do see where you're coming from, the sense that there's some misogynist stereotyping going on.

I've got it both ways Some think the "winners" are the ones who eat directly of the sustenance of Eiritha. Goddess-food, directly from Her. The losers protect and serve the winners. And the losers are pretty weak, and pretty slow, so they get carried when the tribe moves, or when someone needs to move fast. And as you say... they have to eat the flesh of their kin. I mean... the tribe survives, but... <gags> GROSS. Others have a more conventional, humanocentric view of things.

A point, I suppose. But it could occasionally still work, with the proviso that on a wooden floor, you need to get to a plank that your target is touching... I'd also allow it on a solid floor -- hardpack dirt, etc, such as some stables -- or a chamber of a natural cavern.

They already knew. Humans were never "aliens," trying to figure out new-planet-ecology & foodstuffs. Ancient wandering tribes always came from an adjacent area, where some of the foods they knew (that were common where they came from) could still be found. They could observe -- from among the new varieties -- what the local creatures could (and couldn't) eat; e.g. if a bear or a pig or a monkey could eat it, it's pretty certainly safe for a human. Etc.

I don't really wanna be That Guy. Really, I don't. But I'm gonna be, I'm afraid... What I do for this is use 3x5 cards as "GM's mini character-sheets" at the table. Character & player name, whatever stats/etc I need. It is tremendously more versatile than any fixed sheet... I can lay out the cards in a circle (as above), "fan" them like a hand of playing-cards, stack them (table order going 'round (clockwise or counterclockwise), character-order (initiative-order, marching order, etc), etc), etc... I can "segregate" my cards -- these ones have ranged weapons, those ones do not;...these ones are standing on the dock, those ones are still in the boat; etc... I can insert a card for "5 Mooks" and another for "Mook's Leader" into an initiative-stack. Having 1-2 players more than a "Table Tracker" can track is a non-issue (I admit -- having fewer players on such a Table Tracker sheet is also a non-issue... other than bothering the OCD'ish who find blank "sheets" a problem... which I personally am totally OK with! ... <twitch>) I do see the advantage of having the whole "table" laid out to track as per this "table tracker," for sure! I think what I'll do is add a clipboard and a couple of oversized rubber bands, so I can hold my 3x5 cards in a circular(ish) array at need. === But I've got to admit, there's some good work put into this! And I see the time-savings in having all the formatting & labeling &c done and pre-printed... So I'm wondering: what about setting up just your little mini-character-sheet format from the "Table Tracker", only in an array for printing out and cutting up into 8 (or so) mini-sheets to use in the ways I outlined above? FWIW...

If you can touch a ladder at the base, and Glue the top of the ladder to a wall (or a Cradle) ... Why can't you touch a floor, and Glue it to a boot? <ahem> Scuse me, did I wander outside the Egregious Munchkinnery thread again? Sorry, my bad...

This looks nice... Um... Or nasty, I s'pose. Depends on one's POV, really. Mine is as a GM, so "nice." I expect my players may differ.

Hmm hmm hmmmmm ... Fascinating... YGWV and all that, so the real answer is "however you want," but I'm curious if this links at all -- as written -- into any of the existing "elephant" or "mammoth" lore of Glorantha (minimal as it is...)

I think this is a classic Glorantha-ism, with one "provably true" myth in one place, and an incompatible (but also "provably true") myth in another place. Keep them both. Develop them both. Let them both breathe and grow. Let them both ... Be.

I'm fond of "leveraging" the Eurmali. YOU may not be able to walk across his hallucinatory bridge... but you can ride piggy-back on the Eurmali as he crosses! So can the party Storm-Bull (which IS a sight to behold)...

The weapons will scale a bit differently. A "greatsword" scaled down to pixie-size would approximate a letter-opener, la bit like a misericorde; I suspect the pixie-greatsword blade would be a bit thicker than that (more dagger-like, as you say). But IMHO you're envisioning an awfully-dinky "Giant" if you're considering 2d12 damage.

I believe it creates an "illusion" that only you can see; but Gloranthan illusions are temporary reality. So you can ride a hallucinatory High Llama, walk across a hallucinatory bridge, climb a hallucinatory ladder (or rope), open a hallucinatory doorway into a building, etc etc etc. Nobody else can avail themselves of this; and AFAIK you can "wield" a hallucinatory sword but not HURT (or in any way affect) anyone with it. But (in the cases above) people will see you moving swiftly across the landscape at Llama-back height, "walk on air" across a crevasse, casually scale a sheer wall, walk into a building where no doorway exists, etc etc etc. It's sort of the ultimate "personal utility magic" spell.

Kyger Litor has worshipers who are "native" to some very Dark places. Wachaza & other sea-deities have natively "watery" followers in the Merfolk. Aldryami are plants, can't get much more runic than that! Etc... Orlanth has very few worshipers who are "native" to the Middle Air... I think the (relatively scarce, maybe 250K worldwide?) Wind Children are about it ... ? Which seems odd, given how powerful the Storm Tribe is, and Orlanth...

Just being able to flip-flop the units-vs-tens dice is usually held to be a very-advantageous thing, worth a "hero point" (or other metacurrency) spend. Occasionally you'll have doubles or adjacent numbers and get little to no difference, but even then... 65 v 56 is substantive, if you're rolling a 60% skill! Favorite two of three dice, in favorite order? WOW! As you say... a massive effect... (I thought the CoC7 mechanism is just a single alternate 10's die (not a "best two of three", in any order)?)

Grandpa, tell us about the pixies !!!

Sounds like a decent NPC villain, to me. My inner munchkin-GM wonders:. If a Thanatari RuneLevel (with, for example, 4-5 heads) is himself beheaded (by the aforementioned SB/T Illuminate) does this new guy get to keep the head of his Thanatari victim, PLUS the heads formerly held by said RL?

Hmmm ... I'm not sure I see how the proposition could ever be proven or dis-proven. I think it's doomed to remain an interesting speculation.

This seems likely enough. Coyote's and badgers have been known to hunt cooperatively for some time (and they aren't the only such cross-species partnership). I'm not sure I'd to so far as to say they "co-domesticated" -- humans were, I think, already pretty "domesticated" by the requirements of tool-making and by rearing such long-time-helpless young.

Yeah, THAT one was cats. Humans and cats were probably pretty irrelevant to one another, until agriculture (& especially grain!). Once humanity became hosts to innumerable rodents living off the artificially-enriched environment, cats decided humans had a reason to exist, after all...

Dunno... IMG, Prax is harsher than that. There mostly isn't enough nutrition in a camp waste-stream to sustain a breeding population of dogs... the humans need it. "Used" bones get cracked for their marrow, and boiled-up in soup/etc; the clean bones get made into tools and weapons. If the dogs can otherwise offer sufficient value -- alert guards, give alarms, etc -- then I can see the tribes intentionally leaving some of those scraps instead of stripping them bare. But an intelligent human is also a pretty good guard, in open country like Prax. The nomads are all raiders themselves, after all... they know how to set up their camps to minimize the opportunities raiders will have, and maximize their own scouts' & guards' chances to give adequate alarm. I am "unclear" on how the dogs can offer that value, earn their keep in such scarcity. Still, we have Greg's own vision that Praxians DO have & use "camp" dogs, and the myth about Waha's brother. Unless we (or you, or I) wish to greg Greg, it's got to be made to work! 😉

I was solidly geeking-out over sci-fi / fantasy / mythology / etc before the first publication of D&D in the mid-70s, so ... RPGs were another expression of the same interest. My 1st RPG was TSR's 1e of Gamma World; my 2nd was AD&D1e (that was it, from 1978 up through 1980)... I got into RQ2 and Traveller in the 1980/81 timeframe, then Champions and a BUNCH more through the mid-80s & onward...

Maybe not the fixed residents, who work in place; but some of the more wandering sorts (like hunters) might well take a several-day journey to reach a shrine; particularly as they can hunt as they travel, or set snares & traps to pick up en route back to their "home" territory.

Oh hell yeah, absolutely! OTOH, also realize that every Chaos-Priestess of Mallia is equivalent to today's terrorist ... with today's bioweapon-lab in their back pocket! Ya win some, ya lose some.

I think it's almost impossible to disentangle Glorantha's magic & myth, and figure out how it "would be" without those. Take Prax & the Wastes -- that stuff gets to a level of inhospitable that far exceeds even the worst places on Earth; and it is (courtesy of ancient mythic events) the "permanent" steady-state, without any added magic. But I assume that for MOST of Glorantha, the default (with no magic for good or ill... if you can find such a place...) is somewhere close-ish to our Real-World. Yes, the "Bless <XXX>" spells will lift it to much-better; but then along comes Mallia -- or just frikkin Eurmal -- and your field is throwing up thistles, and your cow is dropping a calf with a third eye, and -- overall -- you are usually better-off than a corresponding Real-World Bronze-Age farmer/herder/etc... but not always, and certainly not if you don't have your cousin's wife, the Adventurer, who comes to deal with the problems cropping up.