g33k

The new Cults book, Gods and Goddesses of Glorantha, is up to 100 cults in long-form write-up, confirmed as 2 volumes. NEW !!! - Red Book of Magic, an encyclopedia of all canonical Rune & Spirit spells. Both those (3 volumes total) will be at 2019 GenCon in a rough format (text only, no art, no layout, editing may be incomplete, etc). I'm almost-certain that I read it SOMEWHERE -- but cannot now find to cite; help anyone? -- that both nuTrollpack-1-2-3 & Nochet are confirmed as being for the RQG ruleset. Given RQG's status as a "Pillar of Chaosium" (by which I assume they mean demonstrated revenue-generation, and associated plans for writing/dev & produced titles serving the cash customer-service), I suspect most or all of that "rule system TBD" list is destined for the RQG column. I continue to think that a dual-stat or triple-stat (with HQ:G and/or 13G) supplement might be a worthwhile project for Chaosium! In addition to selling into all 3 markets, it might cross-pollinate players into buying new corebooks for the new systems.

It's surely one of those grey-area things, arising from the close Storm/Earth relationship. As I think about it, I wonder if there might not be some sort of Ernalda/Barntar identity like the Orlanth/Vinga one; just one that is not (yet) revealed. Hrmmm. I think I see a mighty HeroQuest coming ...

It'd probably be this one, right here: BRP Central, the Glorantha and/or Runequest sub-forums. Yes, the grognards are lurking in the bushes with their Firehoses of Deep Lore; but mostly -- in a "beginner" titled thread -- they try to throttle those back. As noted above: The Glorantha Sourcebook was written largely to be an easier-access introduction. Many praise it as such, although I've seen a few report that it didn't help them. It's likely to be helpful, but not a sure thing. The computer game "King of Dragon Pass" is often held up as one of the best intro's to the world. Heroquest Voices is also a great orientation. My own favorite "intro" material -- back in the day -- was the sidebar travelogue "The Travels of Biturian Varosh" from Cults of Prax (now also reprinted in the Cult Compendium). There is an ongoing metaphysical battle: Chaos invading Glorantha. This plays out materially, in Dragon Pass, with the sometime-Chaotic Lunar Empire invading the Orlanth-worshiping kingdom of Sartar. From the Orlanthi point of view, Chaos is mutative, corruptive and destructive, never-to-be-trusted (also... those assholes invaded us!). Yes, it can produce amazing beauty & wonder... but you can never trust the Chaotic to be what it seems to be, to stay what it is/was... as when the Bright God Nysalor was revealed to be the Chaos God Gbaji (cue the villain-reveal organ chords -- duh-duh-dummmmm!). From the Lunar point of view, "we are all us" and the distinction between chaos and not-chaos is illusory (also... those stupid barbarians need civilizing!). The Lunar empire accepts everyone who holds to the Lunar Way, even Chaotic "monstrosities" like Vampires and Ogres and Broo. NOTE that this sometimes makes them more palatable to the modern view: less sexist, less racist, more accepting/affirmative, etc; at times radically so! BUT... there's this niggling question of whether the Lunar Way is no more than a deceptive (and ultimately apocalyptic) trap... In the non-metaphysical here-and-now of your actual character, however, a Lunar PC is absolutely playable (and is even one of the iconic pre-gen's in the core book (Vostor was a loyalist of a Lunar bigwig who lost in political infighting -- living in exile, possibly a criminal to the Lunar authorities, Vostor still worships the Seven Mothers of the Lunar Way)). A common concern! Many of the events in the family-history section are based upon the Lunar/Sartar conflict, and upon the arrival of the mighty warlord Argrath & his boon companion Harrek the Berzerk. For Esrolia, the loss of God-King Belintar about a decade ago is probably the biggest and most-disruptive event. That probably didn't affect your PC directly, but without Belintar's protection, Harrek's wolf-pirate fleet & Greymane the pirate ravaged Esrolia. There's two kinds of magic (well, three... but we'll leave the third way aside for now)... 1. Spirit magic (sometimes called "common" magic or previously "battle magic"). Virtually anyone can learn it and use it, and virtually everyone does. It's very utilitarian, but a bit limited. You have a pool of "magic points" to fuel these spells; pay the MP, cast the spell. Some cults put limits on some spells (e.g. Yelmalio had his fire-powers mythically stolen, and his followers may not cast fire-magic). Adventurers need to look at a "focus" (tattoo, piece of jewelry, carving on the edge of their shield, etc) to cast it swiftly; without a focus it takes an extra round or two to cast. 2. Rune magic, granted by your god/dess. When you formally "Initiate" into the service of a deity, you sacrifice points of your POWer score, lowering that rolled characteristic. Each point of POW gives you a "Rune Point," and a Rune Spell. The pool of "Rune Points" fuels your Rune spells. There are a large number of "common" Rune Spells that almost all deities can give their followers, but each deity also has some special spells that few/no other deities can grant. Your score in the associated Rune is your casting-skill in for that spell. Note that your permanent POWer, as rolled, is actually a pretty fluid number, easily increased; so sacrificing those POW points isn't as dire as it might seem at first! A great many people in Glorantha are "Initiates" of various deities, and they DO have access to Rune Magic from their gods. These are, overwhelmingly, faithful and devout folk, rewarded by their deity for their faith&devotion, for being the sorts of people their gods like. So yes... "vaguely" priest-like. The real priests (and the Rune Lords) are even moreso, and gain even more benefits! But "most people" really aren't Initiates -- they are kinda-sorta mostly faithful followers, probably of the entire pantheon more than a single god/dess... plus maybe another deity or two on the side... and sometimes some ancestor-worship... but not to the point of regular sacrifice of POW! They don't have a pool of Rune Points, or Rune Magic. (These people are, by and large, NPCs) One of the things that makes the Orlanthi of Sartar stand out is that they seem to have a much higher proportion of Initates than most cultures have. Quick history of the title: RQ1 (Chaosium) 1978 RQ2 (Chaosium) 1980 RQ3 (Avalon Hill published, but the authors were Chaosium) 1984 MRQ (Mongoose Runequest) 2006 MRQII (Mongoose Runequest II) 2010 RQ6 (The Design Mechanism) 2012 RQG (Chaosium) 2018 For RQ's 1-3, the "official" timeline was near the height of the Lunar Empire's power. They had conquered Sartar, were occupying Pavis (the only city in the Wastes of Prax) and Corflu (the ocean port downriver from Pavis). The "scruffy rebels vs. oppressive conquerors" was kind of a default... but folks' campaigns ran wildly outside those lines! These were all iterations/evolutions of the same rulesystem, and players tended to use their favored rule-set with supplements/adventures from any other of the three, adapting on the fly. None of the core rulebooks had deep lore (that only came with later supplements; RQ2+CultsOfPrax was amazing, back in the day!). Really, they only had hints as to Glorantha! So although there was nominally a firm date, what that meant in terms of setting-details wasn't clear from the core rulebooks. Lots of folks went and did whatever in their campaigns, without using any supplements. When Mongoose licensed the game, they went back to an earlier Age, almost a millennium prior (and also did a major rework on the rules, rendering prior supplements less-immediately useful (but still roll-under d100 vs skill, still basically usable)). The Mongoose material varied in quality, but is all now considered "non-canonical." Some fans still use it as resources (and some still prefer MRQ rules and/or 2ndAge setting). MRQII was yet another substantive reworking of the rules. When Mongoose lost the license, MRQII was de-Glorantha-fied and is now available as the Legend RPG. RQ6 from TDM was written by the same authors -- and derives from on the same mechanical chassis -- as MRQII. However, TDM opted to produce an almost setting-free game, with almost no Glorantha in it at all... it's the most "toolkit-y" version of Runequest! When Chaosium decided to produce the next version of RQ entirely in-house, TDM re-worked their RQ6 ruleset as Mythras (which is going gangbusters for them, and has a bunch of settings and supplements). With RQG, Chaosium has set aside all the "Mongoose" heritage -- the mechanics went back to (mostly) a mix of RQ2/RQ3, and the setting has advanced just a few years from the Lunar-Occupation era. Those RQ2/RQ3 supplements are useful again, though they need a bit of updating to RQG (with "Runes" and "Passions" and such). RQG also has MUCH more of the world included in the core rulebook, with a world-shaking event (the "Dragonrise") set just a few years prior to the start of the game. Character-creation in RQG is very time and place specific. It is meant to root your character in their culture, in the world of Glorantha.

<sigh> OK, time for all of us native English speakers to confess -- English itself is ludicrous.

You've been into Glorantha for how long now? And you still bold the word "really" and ask for absolutes? If I didn't know better, I'd wonder if you were trolling us...

To be brutally Frank, "Creekstream River" is pretty ludicrous in English (by the lights of this native speaker). This is in keeping with MANY early Glorantha-isms... ludicrousity abounds!

Remember: Greg gregged even Greg Himself.

Actually, I think this impulse needs to be looked at very carefully. As Jeff has said, Kralorela is explicitly NOT Fantasy China. The more and more specifically-China elements, and specifically-Chinese combinations of more-broadly-known elements, the more you make it into Fantasy China. So, yes - deprecate the worst stereotypes that perpetuate problem tropes. And yes - add (carefully) a few of those less-sterotypical bits of ancient China. But the more of Ancient China you include, the more you make Kralorela into Fantasy China. So lean-in on other, non-China resources. Aztec, Maya(!), And other Mesoamerican "feathered serpent" iconography, and (both draconic & non-draconic) myth-cycles. Southeast Asia. Polynesia (not limited to Hawai'i!). And sure... grab tidbits of Euro-something, just because. And ALSO lean, most of all, into GLORANTHA, into the historic and mythic evolution of Kralorela since the Dawn -- who was there at the beginning, what elements are still there, who invaded or migrated in, trade brought what things from where, how did they survive the Lesser & Greater Darkness, what impacts did Chaos bring? How did the much more numerous & varied Keets differ from the Ducks? And the other Elder Races... Uz, Mostali, Aldryami, Beastmen, etc? And so on...

I don't see any reason for "mammalian" either, but the features may be intrinsic to Man Rune entities. And despite the Plant, Aldryami also do have Man Rune as part of their beings.

For those who've read Novik's Temeraire series, there is a marvelous version of China that might be worth cribbing from. The worlds are different enough that it cannot be just a 100% straight rip-off, but taking cues... Imagine if the Dragon Emperor decreed a magical hybridizing & breeding program, based around all forms of Saurians. Pterosaurs for flight, magisaurs for magic & intelligence, plus other Awakened or other intelligent varieties, maybe some kinds of sub-Draconic Wyrm's, even Dream Dragons... etc etc etc. Stable forms of "custom" dragon-inspired Saurians, maybe citizens of the empire, maybe a warrior/noble slave caste like the Mamluk's (bonus for another cultural pull from another place&time).

No, I didn't miss anything, that I can see. You seem to have missed that the quoted part is asking for a policy going forward, to be implemented for a still-in-development product. That the policy is precautionary vs racism (or the appearance of racism, being colorblind to a nuance that is glaringly obvious to others) is not to accuse Chaosium of being racist, nor asking them to limit their creativity. I'm having a hard time, here... How is it that asking for MORE folks to be involved in a creative process is a bad thing? How is it that asking for a nuanced and racially-aware portrayal (on a topic that Stafford himself hadn't hit in a deep manner, specifically because he knew that he didn't understand those nuances) is a bad thing?

Tekumel did it first (in terms of RPGs; I know JRRT's original material predates MARB's... but Tekumel's RPG was published before the first Middle Earth RPG).

Since when have Gloranthophiles and fans NOT told Chaosium the stuff they do -- and don't! -- want to see? I'm not seeing that this topic has crossed over into any new territory in any fundamental way.

Not quite. The GenCon product isn't the "retail" product: it's NOT the first few boxes rush-shipped; it's a draft copy, printed & bound as such. Per Rick, it is still in edit/proof stages, so I don't expect Chaosium can even guarantee (at this point) that the "GenCon Edition" will be the print-final text; nor will it likely have much (if any) of the art; etc. I expect that for a customer at the GenCon booth, more precise details will be available. But for a very-limited print-run of a draft/pre-release edition... Well, until they take the "snapshot" of the draft, to print for GenCon (which (if I understand correctly) they have not yet taken), they won't know what that looks like. And until Jeff/Jason/whoever declares the draft ready for Layout, they won't know what the Final looks like either. And for those of us who are drooling FanBoiz&Grrlz with $90ish burning a hole in our coinpurses, none of those uncertainties matter in the slightest! :--)

Well, we can't have too much niceness... specially on such an opinionated & grognardian forum! Well done, then; and I hope nobody finds my own remarks too on the nose. 😥

Love a lot of your ideas & examples! Especially the Hawaiian / Polynesian stuff, it's IMHO a suite of cultural resources under-utilized by the RPG community. (Although I note the heavy use of feathers (hence birds) in noble&ceremonial gear, and wonder if Kraloreli hold to the same Runic associations that the Orlanthi do... I wonder if lots of lizard/snake skin might be a viable motif?) *** But on this one point -- quoted above -- we differ significantly. I think the problem goes deeper than that. "Too much China" would be a problem worth fixing in itself, if that's all it was... but lots of folks are seeing it not as "China" but as "stereotypical, Western-POV, bordering on racist" China. No real blame on Chaosium, particularly nuChaosium: Greg himself is known to have considered his own awareness of the East as inadequate to the portrayal, and held the extant materials as more a "placeholder" (what a wiki/etc would call "stubs") pending his better education or getting a better-informed developer to work on it... And of course the TIME to work on it! The areas surrounding Dragon Pass have had decades of intensive work by a series of top-tier creatives; Kralorela's "stubs" show that the area is equally rich & varied! Nor do I blame the fans, particularly... the piecemeal / ad-hoc nature of per-campaign / per-fan development precludes any cohesive vision, and often tends to lean-in on familiar tropes (aka "stereotypes") for broad swaths. It's clear that Kralorela can sustain much more, and much better, than it has had to date... and really, I've no doubt that Chaosium can do it justice.

But Serdrodosa does give access to Ernalda, or so I understand. Normal temple-centric / holy-day worship (via priest & priestess) of both Orlanth and Ernalda fails during the Windstop event... But Ernalda CAN be reached via Serdrodosa's methods. AFAIK, Orlanth during the Windstop cannot, by any methods.

I think I'd allow Sleight for somewhat larger objects. For example... you walk past an object, taking it with you unseen as you pass. This seems to me a classic Sleight. If you can conceal it in a hand, all well and good... but what if you can hide it behind the profile of your body, equally unnoticed? I still find this to be a Sleight. I'll need to go back to the rulebooks (and I only have RQ6, so if there's revision in Mythras I'll miss it)... but intuitively to me, the key element of a Sleight is that it's actively done while under observation. You may be taking the object, hiding it upon your person. You may be moving it, from out in the open to a more concealed place, etc. But it's DOING the thing, while not being recognized as doing anything of note.

Best of luck!!! I think the biggest thing to convey is how very very un-Tolkein the Gloranthan Elves/Dwarves/Trolls are. I'd try to deprecate even using those names, because they've become so very Tolkienized.... The Aldryami are plant-people, literally grown from the soil; some call them "Elves," but they are more Swamp-Thing than Legolas! (though an "Ent" is also very Gloranthan, if not very PC-ish) The Mostali are more like biomech's, like the "Cleaning Service" in the Labyrinth. Some are stilted, programmatic, Robocop-ish. Individualtiy is anathema to them. Uz seem terrifyingly violent and bloodthirsty... from the human POV. They are actually an ancient high culture, with primal Darkness (and its associated features of cold, devouring, secrets, etc... all of which seem terrifying to humans) as a central feature. Maybe get some art (I think some of the good Gloranthan artists have DeviantArt and similar accounts, so you can call up typical images) to show at the gaming table? Let us know how things go!

Wait... I thought the Dara Happan's were still heavily Yelm-oriented? And Initiate into Yelm's worship readily.

<blinks> You seem to have mis-quoted there, Mr. Barbarian... 😏

Hey, welcome! What an amazing 1st post. Very nice indeed! But don't worry about our arrgh- they're-Lunar overlords, mostly they just let us be.

.... Elton? 's that you? Didn't know you were a gamer!!!

Not a LOT of answers for you, but a few notions... 1.4 Marriage: I'd go with having the first generation or two consider "clan-of-origin" for marriage limitations. As they found their new clan, they specifically permit marriages as if the couple were each with their originating clan. Normal Orlanthi exogamy BOTH prevents inbreeding, AND creates social ties; so the new clan "ties itself together" by replacing any strong outward bonds with in-clan ones. This may be a very conscious and intentional thing, with elders deliberately putting specific pairings together ("you two, thresh this grain!") or mixing specific groups, in hopes of specific ties / weakening other ties. They may task their lawspeaker with helping formulate a "unified" tribe, etc. 2.3/2.4 Cults: If starting a new campaign, I'd Rule Zero before anything else, and pull the PLAYERS into this decision! I suggest, overall, that distance-from-major-centers isn't as significant as who came with them. If a powerful Ernaldan priestess, with lots of influence in the new clan, was one of the founders, then the new clan likely has strong Ernaldan influences! Same with Dark Orlanthi, etc. Any specific Cult(s) can be present (or not), strong (or weak)... as needed or desired. Start with the players & their PC's, and work backwards to see who the Clan Founders must have been (the GM obviously includes any elements needed for their own Evil Plans (tm)!) 2.5. Yes. Orlanth is Dead. He doesn't give new magic, doesn't refresh Rune Pools. Ernalda is... asleep, probably? But also not answering to prayer/worship. Serdrodosa the Earth Witch provides a Shamanic backdoor for a variant Ernaldori practice, that I don't think Kolatings do for the Orlanthi; so Ernalda seems to be in a different "state of being" from Orlanth... but maybe that's just an expression of who they are, as individuals: Ernalda, after all, is the progenitrix of "there is another way!" 3.2 "Possibly more battle axes, too" Note the axe as an iconic Earth-rune weapon.

... which he models for JarEel.