g33k

Common sense says no. A God Talker is part of interpreting the god(s) to Middle-world people; I think it takes being in your own body to have the perspective to do so. YGMV. (I can imagine an exception made for an Allied Spirit who is also an Ancestor-spirit, and maybe is homed into a Herd-Man body.... maybe...?)

No "maybe" about it!!! Chaosium -- make it so!

But when you slow it down, 60fps gets twice as many flicker-of-an-eye details... Why stop there, though? Why not aim for ultra-high speeds? 120fps? 500fps? I mean... there probably should be something worth seeing, if you're gonna bother adding this to your game...

Duckweed is a specific group of plants (family Lemnaceae or Lemnoidiae). This family does include the plant(s?) called "water lentils" -- which is NOT a "lentil" in the legume sense of the word (legumes are Fabaceae). https://wholesalewaterlilies.com/products/duckweed-lemna-minor-good-turtle-koi-food https://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Article/2015/04/13/Could-Lemna-water-lentil-be-the-next-big-plant-based-protein

Something like 18fps -20fps was usually the aim, near humans' persistance-of-vision limits. Down around 15fps(ish) many (most?) folks begin seeing the sequence-of-stills effect. I suspect the manual crank system won't work correctly above 25-30ish fps: the moving pieces, spring-loaded, lever-armed, counterweighted... they have certain operations that go no faster than they go, no matter how fast you crank. Back in the days of typewriters -- back in the days of manual typewriters -- getting the mechanism jammed was a real thing. 175ish wpm was the manual record, 220ish wpm is the record for an electric typewriter, and I presume the innards of the old cine-cam would have a similar limitation. But I don't actually know for certain. Also, humans driving a crank near their own limit will tend to get uneven rates, speeding up and slowing down. A nice even pace is best. Newer machines could, in principle (dunno if anyone ever built such) use a suite of internal springs/gyros/etc to store the human cranking and output a smooth framerate, but AFAIK such technology didn't exist in the 1920's... except it probably did, on Eorthe! 😉

Almost certainly; in fact, it's challenging NOT to ... When you see those old movie-cameras with a hand-crank, that crank is almost always providing 100% of the mechanical power driving all operations (mainly advancing the film, but also winding the springs and then actuating the shutter).

I think we need to give Ellie a pass on this: she works for Chaosium, but in a junior role & Jeff has already chimed in... and it's an "incendiary" topic. Unless she prefers to comment, of course. But while we're on the topic... how many (other) regular users here identify overtly/publicly in this space as women?

You seem to be stretching beyond the confines of gaming, here...? I can't quite tell. But lets get back to gaming. You're saying that a woman who wants to play a female adventurer has to be less-good at it, in an absolute games-mechanical way. Notwithstanding CON (which is a boring, passive stat) or INT (which is a boring, statistical-advantage long-run stat (except for sorcerors)); at least POW gives good magic... but what if they want to play some stabby-bashy type? Here, sweetie... have some magick. It's just as good, even better! Really! Everybody realizes that male power-lifters will lift more than female power-lifters, that the STR difference exists. In the real world. You get incendiary by blithely asserting "hey, that's just how it is" and -2'ing the women who came to the table inspired by Xena and Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel and She-Ra. Take your -2 and stick it... well, let's keep it polite, shall we? But you're telling the PLAYERS that they should just suck it up, because "hey, that's just how it is." But dude. Plant-people elves, and mechanistic vat-grown dwarves, and humans made out of runestuff. Flying miles-long dragons. A Lozenge world. And you think -2'ing the likely choice of half the PLAYERS "buhcuz sim-u-LAY-shun!" is a good argument? It just sounds... petty. Silly.

Wait. Why are none of you listing "Run Away!" as a key skill???!? You don't have to be faster than the Ghast that's chasing you, you just have to NOT be the slowest one in the party...

On the gendered variation on INT ... Data does not support this in any meaningful way. As noted, the "average" IQ difference ("g" or "general intelligence") is low enough to be statistically insignificant, and most "IQ" tests are so inaccurate as to regularly return results for the same individual with far greater variation. Some researchers say they feel the evidence supports higher INT for men; other researchers say it supports higher INT for women; others say the evidence supports no difference. There is some differences in specific tasks -- men seem to be better at spatial rotation, women at spatial memory. Women seem to have better "emotional intelligence" and this can particularly show up in social situations such as friends visiting/socializing. Does anyone really want to try to encode all that (and more, similar, minutia) into RQ-ish rules???? If so... I'm not sure if that makes you a sadist, or a masochist...

Humans are made up of Periodic-Table elements; of DNA, by way of evolution. Gloranthans are made up of Runes, created by their various gods (and dragons, etc). The more I think about it, the less I think there is ANY basis to presume human-style sexual dimorphism. Under the RAW, that I can see, there is zero support for believing this has any merit.

Excellent points! Also, I wonder: How many groups play character-generation purely by RAW? I've observed a lot of HR's reported on the rolls for stats...

This idea used to be a thing, back in the archaic years of RPGs. Simulation uber alles, STR penalties for women, etc... Most of the hoary old propositions were there in the OP. It was part and parcel of why most women didn't play, wouldn't play. Ultimately, we play to have FUN, and "simulating" this aspect of sexual dimorphism isn't really fun (for most people). So it's not worth "playing" a game with this "feature" -- it's a bug, in that is interferes with the primary goal of the game. Pretty much the only way I could see this working is by women (and hence female-centric Cults like Ernalda) getting a serious POWer-up. POW = 4d4+4 ??? Something active, PC-ish, not just CON to survive trials and tribulations...

But I've also seen "modern media" show dragons exhaling an extended, multi-second blast, during which the head waved back and forth, covering a 90+ degree angle of fire... Maybe one claims "dodging" into a shallow depression, or behind an obstacle, such that you escape the brunt of it. But only a small portion (the very edges) of such broad target areas allow one to dodge entirely away... OTOH, the RQG-specific details are AFAIK kind of sparse...

Humakt's own truth. SWIMMING in it.

Historically, there have been some. D101 Games is AFAIK the most-recent 3rd-party publisher. I expect we will see more.

Somebody had too much time (and POW) on his hands Errr... ribs.

2 choices, really (IMHO)... Narrow-focus on the cattle raid and the issues around it (iirc largely non-Lunar?), leaving all the broader setting stuff for another time Give an outline of Sartar/Lunar relations, which would have to include the Dragonrise I think you need to gauge your own table to see what's going to sell.

FWIW... The only map style I recognize by name is Wm Church's. Look on the bright side: look at all the great Gloranthan map-makers whose obscurity you share!

It was -- as you suggested -- a hypothetical. An idea I had, after noticing that 1-week time to learn a spell, vs. an almost-instant result of spirit-combat. How could it take a week to be... I dunno, able to do? ... something you learned -- in mere moments -- how to do? We have (so far as I have been able to determine) no "real world examples" of reliable/repeatable spirit-magic spells. Not learning them, not casting them. So a spell-casting focus may not be the same as a real-world focus. In particular, my idea calls for the spell-casting process to be a swift series of mental transformations; a series of foci, that are encapsulated into the one item/image/whatever. It is made such that it "leads the mind" through the process. But it's just an idea. One I think works, it fits the world as-described. But if Chaosium has a different idea, I'm happy for that, too.

... or the same. I mean... "Pyaray" is kinda remarkably Cthulhoid... tentacled giant underwater, destined to come up at the end times... In the theme of the "blind men and the elephant," maybe the Moorcockian Mythos and the Lovecraft Mythos are just two views of the SAME mythos, hmmm?

Bladesharp isn't quite parallel, IMHO; and splitting for extra attacks is different from dodging-then-dodging-again-then-again-and-again... I'd skill-bump before splitting (n.b. that may cross the 100% level and be the only reason you CAN skill-split!) but then I'd add the Bladesharp damage-bonus to every hit (as you say, every hit with that magically-sharp sword is extra-cuttingly-painful).

I am inclined to take the harsher stance, here. Halve the skill, successive Dodge's at -20% per, taken from that halved skill. Because if you are laying on the ground, surrounded by people wanting to hit you with readied weapons... you are about to get hit. A lot. Evenif you try to roll away.

One thing I would suspect takes a while is producing the focus. I envision it as a long meditation, then you mark a certain line or swoop to be tattoo'ed, or make one stroke of the whittling-knife... then you meditate for a while to get the exact NEXT mark, etc. It's not this blazing image of certainty that needs to get out, so you scrawl it quickly and boomDONE... It's a brain-bending Otherworld sigil that needs to be perfectly represented in order that you should have your brain bent in just the right way, reliable even in the heat of battle, or the fog of just-woken confusion, or the unfocused agony of a brand new gut-wound.

OK, here's one of the very oldest in the RQ line, from the most-ancient days... How do you pronounce "Glornatha" ???