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I wouldn't do this. It's REALLY hard to close range with a skilled fighter without taking at least one hit. If weapons could be negated so easily, they'd be MUCH less popular! By the same token, animals seldom even know to that a "weapon" is something to avoid. If they get a genuine surprise-attack, sure... But not when facing a ready foe!

Dara Happa is an ancient empire worshipping a Solar(ish) pantheon (Yelm is at the top, at least), with the Emperor being the Empire, and Yelm's proxy (the Emperor himself is directly worshipped!). Dara Happans claim a recorded history back to before the beginning of Time. Yelm is the God of rightful rulership, the god of the Noble classes. Merchants, crafters, etc... Not so much, if at all (the nobility AND the Yelm priests would likely see that as making a claim to be "legitimate rulers," aka to be rebels). When the Lunar powers gained ascendency, they didn't replace the existing Solar nobility, or demand they abandon their ways. Sedenya's son proved himself Emperor of Dara Happa, Moonson and Red Emperor, and united the Solar & Lunar loyalties in his person. The Lunar Empire extends beyond Dara Happa these days, but most of the core Lunar region is Dara-Happa-of-old, and virtually all of the Lunar nobility are still Yelm-worshipping Solar cultists.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that one! Good call. Also worth noting that the linking scenario is pretty easy to re-purpose if you had been running P&BR instead of B&B.

I think the point is that among the Orlanthi... when the temple calls for aid... YES, most of the village or stead or whatever does show up. I mean, female-centric for Ernalda & male-centric for Orlanth, but still.

I think it was ... Borderlands? ... that had a Morokanth slaver -- an unsavory sort, by implication -- who was an avid chariot racer. IIRC, there was a challenge involving a cross-country race with him... I could be conflating another adventure, but I know there was a Morokanth Maybe this has been Gregged, or Jeffed...? If so, I've probably found another area where My Glorantha Will Vary; I'm just unsure how MUCH.

Say there, Crel ol' buddy... I'd be a bit... cautious, if I was you. That there Hill yer on looks kind of ... Gold.

The fundamental flaw in such philosophies is the belief that Chaos is encompassed by Illumination, or can continue to be contained, constrained, or directed by it. Chaos -- eventually -- will become the entirety of the Lunar Way, rather than a part of the Many that is One. Right now, Sedenya seems to have Chaos under control. The Bat comes and goes on command, etc. But it won't last, cannot last. Illumination can expand to encompass all of Glorantha, from the Sky Dome down to the deepest Underworld, the Middle World to the Otherworlds. But so too can Chaos... and much, much more. Sedenya only stood at the doorway; what is Without that door is further beyond Her than She herself is beyond a child in the streets of Glamour. Something will come through from Outside, and it will prove Sedenya's error; very possibly, destroying Glorantha in doing so. It's entirely possible that this "something" already has come through, and simply hasn't yet proved itself ...

I don't think so. I expect SOME young adults initiate into a Cult as part of the adulthood initiation, but I expect that's pretty unusual. Adulthood rites let you join the fyrd, hold property in your own right, swear fealty & other oaths, and so on. It's fundamentally a tribal/clan social thing, not religious/cultic. If you sacrifice, it's to the Wyter. I think "adulthood" is a pre-requisite to joining a Cult, which generally happens later... seldom less than a season later, often up to a year, and occasionally more than a year.

I'd have the listed Gifts/Geasa as the most common, but yeah -- they're only examples, not a comprehensive list. I'd be careful not to allow trivial compensating Geasa, or allow too-good a Gift. I'd mostly limit Gifts and Geasa to those deities for which the practice explicit in the rules... "mostly," you'll note: I wouldn't automatically just say "no" to a player with an interesting idea! Note also that there are some implicit Gift/Geas bits floating around, too, such as Chalana Arroy's prohibition against fighting, the Orlanthi riddle-vs-Yelm, etc...

This seems like a good idea; lots of companies look to be pursuing it. EvilHat has not only Fate, but PbtA & FitD & Gumshoe (off the top of my head). Pelgrane has Gumshoe & 13A, & DramaSystem. etc etc etc... (I expect Loz knows all this; I'm just pointing out the state of the industry, for other fans). While there certainly can be "overextending," I trust TDM's good sense to avoid that; and there's strong evidence of "diversity creates stability" across a broad number of fields (q.v. the stock advice "diversify, diversify, diversify" & "biodiversity" & "irish potato famine" & much more).

I'd suspect @MOB's Sun Country stuff would be more specifically relevant than David's Prax stuff. I could be wrong, of course... 🤡

I think you gain a bit more "accuracy of simulation" if you do BOTH -- add a bonus for higher DEX (and a penalty for lower) but ALSO do the comparison of SIZ vs STR&DEX, and layer the two bonii together. A really fast runner is really MUCH faster than an "average" runner, after all... +2 faster? Maybe... probably...? And for yet FURTHER crunchy simulationism -- once your race/chase goes longer than a mile (or 1.5km) or thereabouts, IGNORE the DEX component, and re-figure it with CON in place of DEX... 😁

I've (long) considered going through and revamping all the stat-based bonuses to a regular pattern, but different than the default one. 9-12 = average, bonus 0 13-15 = +1 / +5% 16-17 = +2 / +10% 18 = +3 / +15% 19+ = extra +1 / +5% for every point on the downside, penalties below 9 are symmetrical with the bonii above 12 That would be for the case where a stat is a "primary" influence. If it's only a "secondary" influence, push the +/-'es one category out (so 13-15 (and 6-8) give no modifiers, then +/- 's follow the pattern as above). But basically, I've been too lazy. I've been "considering" this change for more than 35 years now... 🤔

It won't break anything at all. It's one of the nice elements of the BRP family -- a subsystem from one BRP game generally integrates smoothly into any other BRP game. I'd generalize it to +/-1 MOV vs the species MOV; after all, RQ isn't limited to human PC's! But then you need to consider other species averages & so forth. Centaurs, for example, have high SIZ, but you generally don't expect to give them a MOV penalty for it! I do note that it adds a level of complexity, but doesn't address all the issues. For example, there are higher-SIZ beings that have long-and-lean builds, giving higher MOV. Agimori, High Llama, etc. Similarly (but in the opposite direction) there may be some very-large (grossly obsese) beings who'd be even slower than a -1 MOV penalty. The concept behind the CoC7 rule catches a majority of cases, but definitely misses some edge cases, and I suspect RQ may have more edge-cases than you're really expecting... How much difference will it make at the table? I'd ask a few questions... how often will you be having chases or races? How often will those chases have mounted elements (thus rendering the un-mounted MOV irrelevant (mount-vs-unmounted just goes to the mounted being much faster), or others where the inherent species' MOV differences overwhelm the +/-1's?

Something very, VERY much like that, yes... Is this something coming soon-ish, to the Jonstown Compendium? Or is it going the "full professional presentation" route via Chaosium? You??!? How did you get away from your writing desk???? TYVM, though! One minor note: I was specifically looking for the bits needed to create characters from all over the Empire. There's a whole 'nother later needed to play a campaign set within the Empire itself, as opposed to some border region, or Lunars-in-DtagonPass-or-Prax...

Well of course they will ! It'd be really embarrassing if some schmuck YT geek got in the way of (either of them) fulfilling their oath!!! Not to mention, such a death might actually appear (to some) as if they wanted it to happen, let it happen. Which would paint them a coward, unwilling to face the other. No, no. Best make sure the death is claimed by it's rightful, oath-sworn claimant! 😂

Also not TDM, but I'd like to speak specifically to Gumshoe... It's designed specifically around the key issue of mystery/investigation. It eliminates any chance that the players will get stumped on an investigation, miss a crucial clue, etc, because they failed a roll. Sometimes the dice just aren't with the players... Instead, "failed" investigation rolls in Gumshoe mean that the information somehow "cost" them something, or comes with some sort of complication or problem, or similar things -- "downsides" that don't block the story from advancing. It's a relatively popular system these days, for a wide variety of "investigator" RPGs.

Congratulations. They have created the Gloranthan version of "Job Security."

I don't recall that specific percentages have been pinned down by anyone "official" (though I suspect so). However, Sartar having a shockingly-high (from the POV of the invading Lunar armies) portion of Initiates, that HAS been stated. Commander: "What do you MEAN, he's too tough for you?!? You're a squad of Imperial Soldiers! He's one stupid cowherd!!!" Squadie: "Sir, yes SIR! He's one stupid cowherd, sir, who can Fly and cast Lightning, Sir!"

I think "ordinary rank and file" are called "lay members" and NOT considered to be "initiated"... There is a whole "initiated into adulthood" thing, but that's social/cultural, not religious. You probably sacrificed to the local Wyter.

No, no. I don't mean playing AS some impoverished street-rat, or toes-in-the-muck ricefarmer But that's surely part of the background of SOME of the PC'able Lunars! Sartarite PC's often come from farming -- or other prosaic and not-fun-to-RP -- backgrounds, after all. Argrath seems to have gone from the sheep-pastures to his Initiation to killing some Lunars to exile and onward in VERY short order... So, let's rise to @Joerg's challenge. Let's try a Lunar PC concept... Make them a commoner, at least in background. They -- we -- come from the Oslir, fisher-folk for generations. Make it the lower reaches of the river (far from Sartar, or Orlanthic Tarsh, or other RQG Homelands (we're not going to rely on the RQG core-book Family Tables (except maybe for a few world-shaking events like the Dragonrise?))). What was happening in OUR culture, where OUR Adventurer grew up? To our parents' generation, our grandparents? Then... post-childhood, we got conscripted into the Imperial Legions (dunno what branch of service, yet). We need a bunch of Family Background Tables for Oslir fisher-folk, and maybe for associated/related folk... are "wet farmers" part of the same tribe/clan/etc, the way farmers and herders in Sartar can be? Etc... Do we need to know -- does it make a difference -- WHERE on the Oslir we came from, other than "far from Orlanthi influences"? Is there still Oslira-worship? Or are these people Lodrili? Or is this akin to the Ernalda/Orlanth relationship, a "blended family" culture? Is Oslira now a "tame" goddess of the commoners, about endurance, acceptance, submission? Or does hidden rebellion lurk amongst her worshipers (and if so, how will we make this NOT just be a retread of the whole Orlanth/Sartar "rebel" character-tropes & motivations & backstories?) ? Is there gender-differentiation, e.g. priestess-only like Eiritha? Finally, and most-importantly: what (if anything) about Her makes Her an interesting deity for an Adventurer (PC or NPC), or in any way a "better" choice than just going with YASMI -- Yet Another Seven Mothers Initiate? These are key questions, by-the-by... To open up "the Lunar Empire" (not just Tarsh) as a PC background, they need to be addressed again and again and again. About cultures and deities throughout the Empire... What makes this interesting for a PC's background? What's different from other backgrounds of the Lunar Empire? Is there lurking rebellion, and if so how does it differ from the same themes in Sartar? Are there any (or many) Old Religions (besides some Yelm) that will be an interesting and viable alternative to YASMI? Moving into Young-Adult-hood... Yeah. About that whole "being an Imperial Conscript" thing... What's that like? Do we branch the "Background" tables (got conscripted & got military training, and assigned to various military posts -vs- did not, stayed a homebody, or made their own way into some other lifepath)? How do we figure that service? Is it going to look like Traveller, a bit, with branches-of-service? Or...? === There. Mind you, I don't really feel the need to see this Adventurer realized; happy enough if it happens, of course! BUT... My point is: even if the Grognardian Brain Trust here on BRPC comes up with everything to fully-realize this PC -- and I readily concede it as likely! -- the Lunar Empire remains a vast blackbox for most players... who cannot, after all, get GBT input on every non-Tarsh Lunar PC!!! The Lunar Blackbox clearly contains some number of other Blackboxes; but how many? And how different are they, one from another? We have ONE of those sub-blackboxes, for Lunar Tarsh. But there's clearly more, at least one for each Satrapy, and presumably one for each Province. When will Chaosium open up the rest of those blackboxes?

On the one hand, I agree and sympathize. On the other hand -- and brace yourself, this may look like a criticism but 100% is NOT -- you're almost completely wrong about this. What the whole clusterf*** actually looks like is... the messy, contradictory, top-down AND bottom-up (not to mention stuff coming in sideways) sort of goulash that comes from real-world history. It's bullshit, which is fertilizer, which yields rich crops. It's good because it's so messy. The place where I think you're NOT wrong -- not at ALL -- is that there isn't enough "on the ground" perspective. Specifically, we KNOW about all these historical/cultural/mythical trends and groups in the Lunar Empire, and they look like they will yield a really diverse suite of characters, motivations, Passions, etc etc etc. But if we want to create an Adventurer from there, we can choose between the "Lunar Tarsh" background, and... um... No, it doesn't distill nicely into a short-phrase bullet-point so you can summarize a character; a "Lunar Noble" can mean any of several very different things, actually. And really -- REALLY -- from the RPG perspective (and let's stop admiring the extraordinary pseudo sociology/anthropology/mythology/etc for a second, and recall the entire point of this is a RPG, as a storytelling engine) that build-out as playable PC is what matters most. Hopefully, in time, they'll build-out that part of the setting sufficient to make virtually any "Lunar" character-concept PC'able. I think we're getting more about Nochet (and Holy Country?) before that, though. Chaosium doesn't have it even on the "further out..." product-list, IIRC... though I'm pretty sure they've talked about wanting/intending to do it. So yes, it IS a clusterf*** ... and that's a good thing! The only problem with the Lunars, at this point, is that for all the f***ing there are remarkably few orgasms playable-PC-backgrounds.

You really, really don't want to see what that lot would do if you actually gave them editorial control that way. <shudders> No, REALLY.

Sounds like a job for the crack squad of Ninja Trollkin Hackers.

<bad accent>: "In Rrrooooosha, vat ya gets, takes YOU!"