Rodney Dangerduck

Danfive is an important cult for Gloranthan and Lunar game background. However, as it is presented, I remain deeply skeptical that it is a viable cult for a PC. Nor is Runequest a good game system for exploring ascetic mysticism, despite the inclusion of Runes and Passions. I'm not sure if any game system is.

Most of the cults have a red box "Initiates of XXX" listing starting skill bonuses for a PC initiate. I don't see any that include the Illumination skill. Nysalor and Red Goddess do not have a red box for comparison. Perhaps an oversight? I agree that there could be some exposure to Illumination during character history. However, it does not seem that the authorities do anything extra special to teach it to Danfive Xaron as opposed to other cults. Agreed. Sure. Why would they hire you? Are you good at Sense Assassin, Scan or Listen? Handy with weapons? Can you treat poison or cast Heal Body? As a Danfiver, not particularly. You don't even officially have Streetwise or other "I have contacts with snitches" skills. (You should put this into your character background somewhere...) That said, your improved skills in Insight, Search and Martial Arts are useful, so this is actually a reasonable possibility.

DX is an exception, it "needs no spirit of reprisal". If you break cult rules or leave the cult, you will face judgement for your previous crimes.

That works. Ultimately, if the solution to making a playable DX PC is GM fiat "do this or die", that's very forced and limiting.

True, good thinking, but unlikely (as you probably realize). Your starting DX PC needs to become a Rune Lord, answer some riddles, roll Illumination some year at sacred time, then roll INT+POW to join Red Goddess, then make another roughly 50% roll to join Red Emperor. There's probably more that I'm missing. We should develop a version of the Drake Equation to compute the odds...

Completely non-canonical, but, in Fire & Sword, redeemed Danfive cultists often became policemen (or secret police), and were playable, even popular, as PC characters. I agree with your concerns. As presented in The Lunar Way, they seem nearly unplayable to me, unless you are into some seriously weird excrement. Geez, unappealing. That doesn't fit my view of the Lunar Religion as one of Liberation. But I'm in a minority, and you are, alas, sadly correct.

I'm fascinated at all the different takes here on which stats are important, and the logic. All good ideas to think about. For example, I usually treat SIZ as my "dump stat".

Since RQG allows adding 3 to stats and also using Runes to add to stats, a player can usually reach the magic thresholds anyhow. And these are special PC heroes, why not let them optimize stats to some extent?

Give everybody some amount of total points - we like 92, which ends up at 98. Let the players assign them, perhaps with limits: e.g. they must be in the range 10-17. (For humans)

The problem here is not with Extension.

Personally, I think that Argrath hired them, indirectly via one of his proxies of course, to make him look good. They come off in the story as pretty incompetent, and the Lunars have much better. YGMV

Is that really a bug? I see it as a feature. The imaginary world should be incomprehensible to both its inhabitants and the players. Interesting points. I don't disagree. However, if we follow your logic, 90% of this basicroleplaying message board is pointless. Because it's all about players trying to comprehend Glorantha. 🙂 For the record, I'd prefer that Common Rune Magic be, well, common. All cults have all common spells. With a few rare exceptions.

From the Earth Goddesses book, page 53: "Axe Maidens receive a complete suit of enchanted copper armor and a copper axe from their temple. Their enchanting ritual adds 1 extra armor point to their armor and an extra 5 hit points to a weapon." How dies this interact with the normal enchanted armor from Gamemaster Adventures, page 121? Is this some kind of "double secret enchantment" that adds additional HP? If so, why the heck can't others, such as elves do this? Does it cost an additional POW? Specifically, if a PC wants to save weight by the "hammered very thin" copper armor, would the BG enchanted copper plate have 5 AP or 6 AP? Aside: the copper armor rules are, in general, rife with potential minimaxing abuse by PCs.

No. Frankly, the distribution of Common Rune Spells is complete arbitrary nonsense. Orgovale Summer, a cult no more than a handful of worshippers, provides all Common Rune Spells. Donandar, a decent sized cult, with the Harmony Rune that, before time, "won the gratitude of the White Goddess", does not offer the common Heal Wound spell. It's a joke. Ignore the rules here. And it is complicated to remember, especially if a PC is in multiple cults.

I don't think we ever had a PC become an illuminant "by the rules". Some rules were fudged. Or they were illuminated in previous campaigns or "Con Runs". The few PC Illuminants we did have all descended into abusive power gaming caricatures who wore out their welcome.