PhilHibbs

Of course they do! They are aware of the time of day and the seasons, they co-ordinate their activities across multiple years (masting), and you can't walk through a wild forest without feeling their hostility. It's obvious! I love the idea of Aldryami having zero sentimentality over individual offspring.

The runes are also available as individual SVG files on the Runequest Glorantha Wiki: http://runequest-glorantha.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Runes http://runequest-glorantha.wikia.com/wiki/File:Rune_sartar.svg

Maybe the human worship relationship to Aldrya should go through another cult, like Argan Argar for human darkness worship.

There might be a prerequisite that involves cutting your tie to the Beast Rune and acquiring a relationship to Plant instead. Or in addition to, maybe a 3-way man/beast/plant split that all add up to 100. Gain 2 in one, lose 1 in the other two. You'd need a Plant Rune rating to cast most Aldrya magic, for a start. (that's going to be a challenge to my spreadsheet...)

I think that is "No, with a but". The headline is that only Aldryami can use Elf Bows, and if any non-Aldryami even touches one, it withers and dies. However, there are always exceptions, there are always ways to break the normal rules.

Which would lead to some hilarious misidentifications. "They're charging down the hillside, mounted on huge pigs..." "Aaaa, Tusk Riders!"

Well, that's just what you get when us forum-boggles are left to run around without someone to herd us in the right direction! What animal(s) DO the Umathelan Orlanthi use to herd and/or hunt? And, "I don't know, I never thought about it before, but NOT A MONGOOSE" is an entirely acceptable answer.

Oh, ok, I'm wrong. Thanks!

I don't think there is such a rule. Baboons use the Man Rune for Daka Fal stuff just like all other shamans.

Maybe giant mongoose hunts giant snakes and scorpions. Humongoose? Now I want a giant mongoose pet and call it "Hugh".

I don't see the need to impose such realism on a world where winged humanoids can fly, and giant insects can breathe. It can defeat snakes and scorpions because of what Mongoose did in the God Time.

I would prefer more of "know your players and their style, and go along with their ideas if you can", although that's quite difficult. If you've got a plan for how something should work, and a player comes up with something very different, then rolling with it is not necessarily easy. I once gave my players each a dream sequence. The trollkin who wanted to become a troll was in the darkness, and there was something in there with him. Something large, and dark, and breathing with a slow rumble. He (female player, male character) ran like hell out of there, and I couldn't think of any way to turn that into a positive developmental situation.

I thought that Mongoose was eliminated at the end of the Second Age... (well, someone had to...)

Sure, and everything Argrath does can be done through Heroquesting, but just for a start, to get to where he got you'd have to play through the adulthood initiation and absolutely ace it. Stat rolling, roleplaying, and rune/skill rolls would have to all go spectacularly well, and the player and GM would have to be thinking along the same lines when deciding on actions and consequences. Plot characters have that advantage, that the player and GM are the same person and think the same way (most of the time).

In RQG, I'd impose a small reduction in the character's Death Rune rating. His father would then come along and tell him "no one can make you do anything". So a loss, but not an end to the quest.

v1.9.4 Beta 1: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1W7_VCCvzULrC2if_U6udGIt6hHK6w4RiZyRAjMN0QOU/edit?usp=sharing Added all the Spirit and Rune spells to the translation sheet French translations added for all spells (thanks @sireRage) Formatted CharSheet for printing and added HP and MP tracks Adjusted widths and positioning of spell columns, added points columns for spirit and rune Removed Enc 1 for Claw natural weapon

I agree that it should be more "free form", and the rules are deliberately ambiguous about this, not giving any mechanism for who states first. The GM should have a rough idea what the opposition are going to do, the players base their SOI on whatever hints that the GM has given them ("they're a long way from you, Bob, but one of them is eyeing you up and getting a spell ready"), and then you play out the consequences. I would allow small adjustments that are within the spirit of the statement, like if they said "I wait for them to charge us, and attack them when they do", and the enemy runs past them just outside of sword range to attack the healer round the back, I'd let them move to intercept. SOI should not be a stick to beat the players with.

I'd allow that.

First two are fixed. I made the changes in the same sheet that I recently released as they are small quick fixes. Investigating spells list. Third is now also fixed. Sorry about that! TL;DR (Too Late; Didn't Run)

v1.9.4 Alpha 4: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mB2n-fSSBdsBiH0WPvG-eHXTPI2jEXx7cSPcLiimqEM/edit?usp=sharing French translations added for all spells (thanks @sireRage) Formatted CharSheet for printing and added HP and MP tracks

Maybe if you overcame the barrier with entirely mundane means (swim, regular combat skills), then there is little to no chance that you crossed into the heroic world. If you used magic (Flight, Leap, elementals, loads of combat magic vs the guardian), then you may well cross over. The magic weakened the barrier, brought the worlds closer. Of course that means you start off short of magic, which is why the crossing over magic is usually done by the community when you're questing on purpose.

In RQ3, you could get there with just a roll on the encounter table. Later I heard Greg say that he thinks it's harder than that, that there aren't really any places where the otherworld and the middle world touch, there's always a barrier to overcome to cross over. I don't know where current thinking is on that equation. In my glorantha, there are such places, and heroes weaken the barrier and make such accidental crossings more likely just by being around.

I assumed it was a typo.

Characters would be reading the cues, not players, and the melee round structure is an arbitrary imposition that the characters are not aware of. The people in the world are not all deciding simultaneously what they are going to do in the next 12 seconds and then doing it mindlessly. I see no problem with everybody knowing who is starting off the round casting magic, and acting accordingly.

Oh, absolutely. I apologize if there were any unintended implications in the question.