g33k

fwiw, your numbers are 1/3 of the actual rate in the rules: each point of movement is 3m/10ft per rd, not 1m per rd. So that's 24m/rd in melee, 48m/rd running without foe interference. It's still too slow for "realism" (about half of a realistic running speed) but that's the RAW. I might be inclined to fix it just by saying there's an additional 2x multiplier available for all-out sprinting, which can only be maintained briefly.

It's pretty clear from the text that Velakol races his chariot himself, not via proxy. If charioteers were herd-men or slaves, the text would have made that clear, instead. Also note that he's not unique -- there are other Morokanth who enjoy chariot-racing, too! That's mostly who he races against (per the text)...

Greg had, at that time, been working on Glorantha for well over a decade; without a doubt he knew more about it than was published, and those who gamed with him doubtless also did! HOWEVER... the first game in Glorantha was "White Bear Red Moon" the board-based wargame (not "Runequest" the RPG!). So the whole Lunar-vs-Sartar thing -- with their respective pantheons -- plus Dragonewts, Praxian Nomads, and more (based on the counters & their respective rules)... all there from the beginning! A great many early Runequest players got into RQ specifically because they HAD BEEN players of WBRM!

Well, it's true that the "movement" rate is used a lot in a tactical-combat setting, so degree of speed and which-is-faster is all that's relevant THERE... BUT... 1. I wasn't citing MPH/KPH to demonstrate overall "underspeed" of the RAW, only to discuss RELATIVE speeds -- Are the rules a reasonable measure of which Beast is faster? 2. The Impala is STILL far too slow (vs. other Herd-Beasts), under the RAW! I want to either see some good Gloranthan rationale for why this would be this way, or My Glorantha WILL Vary on this point! ;-) Impala Tribe should be the fastest Tribe (at least in a tactical sense -- wouldn't surprise me AT ALL if Zebra or Bison had more endurance over days/weeks of travel!) 3. Out on the Plains of Prax, where e.g. a vengeful Bison warparty is chasing some raiders of another Tribe... "per hour" is a VERY relevant measure! How many kilometers is it to where a large war-band waits to support the raiders? Can they get to the war-band before they are caught? Etc...

Yeah... In fact, what if Ronance-worship turns out to be rather common among Morokanth? They might not field as many charioteer-warriors (only Rune-Lords & Rune-Priests probably have the magic needed) as most tribes field "regular" warriors, but it could be enough to offset the difficulties of other tribes' speed advantage...

Given that Broo's "hybridize" so readily -- but still have a "norm" of the goat-headed anthroform -- I presume there's some "pull" back to that basic form. I'd guess that if one of these "baseline" Broo were to mate with a human, the result would be some intergrade form -- largely human-looking, but with small horns, floppy ears, a long face with lots of space between eyes & nose but little between noose and chin/mouth... Or maybe both human and goat "breed true" to baseline Broo?

... aiieee ... must ... resist.... must... not... comment ... on the USAian Presidential Primary!!!!! Or at least, not upon any particular candidate

Agreed! Though I note that your PC needs a crit-range to include 11% or you can't roll doubles on a crit... I may just adopt this as a HR... Doubles is "something interesting happens" -- generally good, on a crit, generally bad, on a fumble. For non-Crit/Fumble, I'll do the even/odd for good/bad value on the "interesting" bit...

OK, those numbers (cited above, from "Borderlands") are a bit off, vs real-life speed. YGMV, I suppose. Note that below I round to nearest "5 per hour" whether mph or kph. Occasionally, this results in an oddity such as "5mph" faster appearing ALSO as "5kph faster" for the same speed difference. I'd presume that a "High Llama" (larger, longer stride) is faster than "our" Llama (the Llama we can measure with a radar-gun); for the Bolo-Lizard... Waha only knows! But the earthly, non-Gloranthan Bison, Llama, and Sable all have similar top speeds (about 35mph/50kph); Zebra is a little bit faster, at 40mph/65kph. Ostrich is a touch faster yet again, almost 45mph/70kph . Maybe peg the "High Llama" (since we don't HAVE a number, but must CHOOSE one... but at least we have the real-world Llama for reference!) in that 40mph-45mph zone? Or -- since Borderlands seems to want most Herd Beasts to be same-speed -- just ignore these "minor differences" and put ALL of Bison/ Sable/ Zebra/ HighLlama/ Ostrich/ BoloLizard at the same speed? But an Impala runs almost 50% faster than a Bison/Llama/Sable, about 50mph/80kph... granted that's "sprint" not "walk," but still...! Dunno why Impala would be called-out in the rules as the ONE AND ONLY SLOWEST of the Great Tribes' Herd-Beasts... when in our world it's the FASTEST. My best number for the Tapir (though I don't think anyone has really solid numbers for them!) is "about as fast as a small pony." This probably puts them around 20-30mph / 30-50kph... so, yeah: slow enough to be at a real disadvantage vs. all species of Herd Beast! HUMAN PACE (not rounding to 5's here!): While we humans can turn in 10second times on a 100m dash, 20seconds on 200m (both 10m/s or 22mph/35kph) the time doesn't scale up: that should be 100sec on the 1km run, but world record time is over 130sec (about 17mph). For 10km, time is over 26m -- almost 1600 sec, about 14mph/22kph. Despite the apparent "slowdown" over distance, humans actually do BETTER on the sustained runs -- most species' sustained speed is a much SMALLER percentage of their sprint!

Of course, the Morokanth reliance on those spells would be common knowledge among the tribes... leading the warriors near them to learn the same spells, to neutralize their effectiveness... I don't think that's the answer.

Thanks everyone who has commented! I take the point that wheels would be damaging in the Plains, and also the size/weight ratio, speed, and Morokanth's balance in a chariot. All very valid issues! And exactly the sort of "broken-ness I hadn't considered!" You folks rock. But I also wonder (as Iskallor mentioned) how Morokanth conduct raids, and how they return with their gains to their own territories when pursued by riders. In the ordinary course of things, I can't see this happening even 5% of the time (notwithstanding the rule that 01-05 "always succeeds") ! Also: how do they manage to fight effectively when it comes to actual battles? Most lancers (all but the lightest Herd-Beasts) would decimate their lines, but the speed and maneuverability of the light cavalry would out-flank them, and heavy cavalry like Bison (or Rhino!) would turn the line into so much red mud... I have to presume some magical/mythical answer to these prosaic logistical/military quandaries. And that returns me to the joint ideas of a much bigger/stronger/faster Herd-Man... and to chariots. Mythically- or magically-significant chariots, maybe... ? I think we can "fix" the stability/stance issue by saying that the chariot is low-walled and more "table" like. Morokanth ride laying down, or maybe sitting... but NOT trying to emulate a human charioteer's stance. Now let's turn to the magic... bronze "tread" over the wooden wheels, with Morokanth-footprints cast into the bronze... that only make as much impact as one walking Morokanth makes (no matter how much the chariot carries)? Add a pair of Agimori-like Gern pulling; or a quad of them when speed is of the essence (raids/etc). Maybe the Morokanth claim that their magical chariots criss-crossing the Wastes is helping to "weave" additional protection and solidity into the land, rather than tear it up as "ordinary" wheels do... Also: it just "feels right" that they would have SOME way to "ride" their Beasts... Still pondering this question -- not settled on my "chariots" solution -- but finding the criticisms & commentary invaluable. I said it before, I'll say it again, and keep saying it: you folks rock!

A very interesting game premise indeed! Ask the question Mythically, I think: recall that the Eater/Eaten dichotomy is a sacred Covenant (enacted (and enforced!) by Waha &co) for survival. Back in the Godstime, the Men and the Beasts were co-sentient brethren in Genert's lush Garden. Not worrying about HOW it happens -- it's the Gods' will, or it COULDN'T happen, we'll just handwave the HOW -- so much as WHY it happens. Did one clan of Morokanth abandon the Compact in some other way; is this Waha actually "kicking them out" of the Covenant (or just sending a "plague" to warn them to mend their ways)? Speaking of Plague: is it some vile Chaos-disease trying to undermine the tribes' sacred Covenant & the worship of Waha &co? Etc etc etc. The "noble rebellion of independence" is (to my mind) perhaps the LEAST interesting & mythically-Gloranthan way to approach the question... YGMV of course!

Prepping for a new Glorantha/Prax campaign -- wherein nobody but myself has ever played more in Glorantha than 1-off adventures at general-RPG 'Con's -- I had a sudden thought. I wrote in my "brief overview of Prax" for them: Morokanth - The only non-Humans to have become Eaters under Waha's Compact. They herd placid, herbivorous, non-sentient Men as their Herd-Beasts! Men are ill-formed to be riding beasts, so the Morokanth are charioteers. I also thought that the Gern might well become physically-stronger -- like Agimori, basically -- so they'd be more-apt for Beast-like labors, faster runners to draw chariots, etc... Any thoughts, broken-ness I haven't considered., etc?

Going on superhero comics, sure. But that isn't the only metric to go on... as noted above, Gamma World explicitly uses "mutations," but has no "superpowers." Sci-fi in general prefers at least the veneer of science that is "mutation" vs "superpower"...

Also worth considering is just how literal you want to be. For example, the picture shows two heads and tentacles in place of arms, and the stat-block says "Size L 18' tall" -- but I think the physique shows body-mass will be relatively comparable to a human built on "18' tall" scale. Being away from my books, I need to ask how that compares to the "SIZ 40" you gave him -- and further ask, DOES THAT MATTER? Do you want that-literal a conversion? I'd probably up his HP with higher CON, and maybe (as others have suggested) add in POW and/or other characteristics, or just flat game-design fiat. I'd probably increase the armor. Given his stat-block AC = -8, he approaches the "-10" apex of the original scale. As it happens, I just skimmed over the old RQ2 "Borderlands" material and noted a mere Dream-Dragon there (heh: "mere") had Armor ranging from 8-pt to 18-pt, and a lair specifically set up so he could back his "tender" flanks into a passageway and leave only the tough forequarters available to hit... Granted, I don't think the PC's were meant to kill Krang, it's still an indication of how hard it should be to land a meaningful, HP-inflicting blow. As an aside... has any Gloranthan publication ever assigned stats/etc to Cacodemon?

God Learners / GL / Gander Land QED !

It's also worth noting that the original "BRP" pamphlet and the "BGB" version (also called "BRP") were very VERY different things, and not necessarily a linear evolution one to t'other... So, it's necessary in "big picture" discussions like these to be clear WHICH "BRP" you are talking about!

Or a Gorakiki Rune-Priestess...?

I wouldn't want to see ANY artist's cheesecake (unless it was actually RELEVANT to Glorantha (and maybe not even then: what would there be about "Gloranthan Cheescake" --what would it show us about Glorantha -- that would make the image worth the space that could be devoted to a less-revealing / more-revelatory image?). But Giadrosich does lots of non-cheesecake... The style(s) shown in any of these images might well suit a Gloranthan publication, I think... http://heroineimages.tumblr.com/post/115698549564/dtk-womenwarriors-art-by-bob-giadrosich http://www.xiangbalastudio.com/ http://www.infectedbyart.com/Images/Category_194/subcat_218/1801140625211.jpg

As far as the ubiquity of magic goes: make sure you take note of the sharp difference between "common" or "battle" magic (available to almost anyone and learnable more-or-less at will) versus "Rune" magic (only available via Cults, shamans, etc from the gods and/or greater spirits). Ordinary housewives might know "common" spells (e.g. mending, fire-starting, cleaning, etc); shepherds or hunters might know a bit of tracking magic and/or beast-speech spells; soldiers may know "Befuddle" and "Bladesharp" and similar combat spells. But the greater magics (that can change the course of a battle, shape the world, cross from this world into the Spirit realms, etc) are strictly Rune magic... and the simpler spells do not just progress upward to Rune Spells! While there was the idea (in RQ2) that adventuring as an Initiate (and higher) would include (increasing amounts of) Heroquesting and Runequesting, and that this could gain one Runic "affinities" and even eventually let one "possess" a Rune, I don't recall any RULES for this. I think GM's were expected to "wing it" if that happened in their games... I have heard that Greg Stafford worked on the problem of "Rune" rules for quite a while, without getting anything he was happy with.

It comes down to a question, I think, of whether you want there to be "sure thing" Monsters -- targets that it's morally-safe to attack/kill, even in the absence of imminent threat. That's a traditional "staple" of RPG's, dating back to (several of) the foundational sources (e.g. minis/wargames, where "kill the other side" was the entire point of the exercise; Tolkien, whose "orcs" were inherently-evil creatures; and the overall morally-unambiguous us-vs-them of so much fantastic fiction of the day). Baldly stated as "targets that it's morally-safe to attack/kill, even in the absence of imminent threat" makes it really clear, though, that this game is one largely without any real-life referent. Modern apologia for RPG's note that these are games where you learn creativity, out-of-the-box problem-solving, teamwork, socializing, and a whole slew of real-life "soft skills," highly valued in today's commercial marketplace and in today's social milieu. The old-school "monster" stands in rather-stark contrast to that! The alienation and "othering" that's needed to auto-kill another being smacks of some rather ugly understandings of racism, radical/religious terrorism, etc. Personally, I still include "Monsters" like this into many of my games. In terms of RQ/Glorantha, that's mostly Chaos-beasts. However, I don't penalize or judge my players if they choose to role-play the enmities inherent in the world of Glorantha -- the Sartar rebel who regards all Lunars as enemies, etc -- instead of RP'ing a modern/enlightened POV.

Trolls in Glorantha are actually a highly-cultured and sophisticated race. They just also happen to be (largely) violent and aggressive and bloodthirsty. They are actually responsible for some of the great acts of heroism in resistance to Chaos and the Devil, during the Great Darkness (and note that the Darkness was otherwise VERY much to their taste -- but they joined the Great Compromise that brought the Sun-God Yelm back to life, as part of the fight).

@Joerg -- up top, it explicitly excludes settlers (both Pavis and Lunar origin), though it DOES include the "Invader Deities" (including Seven Mothers) so I'm a bit confused... Also, I'd like to see the green/red/uncolored given explicit key/label treatment somewhere. And there just seems to be something "off" to my sensibilites having "The Great Three" and then Daka Fal listed below Storm Bull. Maybe it's just how My Glorantha Varies (or new canonsince my grognard days), but I had always thought Daka Fal's influence (both Divine and within Glorantha) was on the same order as Waha/Eiritha/Urox... But in general -- and despite my minor quibbles -- I really like this! Very nice work!

Backerkit (the logistics folks doing fulfillment) have just sent out the notice to check your physical address in their records, because they're about to lock that down so they can ship. The e-mail arrived (in my e-mail box, and others) yesterday, with subject-line "Last call to update your shipping address for RuneQuest: Classic Edition!" If you didn't see it, check your spam folder; if you still don't have it, contact Rick directly via Backerkit, Kickstarter, or what-have-you.

Has an official title been decided yet? From the phrase above, the internet'ism might be... RQ4C? I'd be a bit worried about line-n00b's (presuming that 4<6) think it's a very-old edition... I'm still hoping for RQG...