Rodney Dangerduck

38 minutes ago, soltakss said:

and provides powerful light magic (Lantern).

I never understood the point of Lantern.  If you cast a normal Light spell on the front of your shield, you basically get the same effect.  Just 10 meters vs. 12.  And Light is much more versatile for other purposes, with no arguments with the GM over what is a "flat surface".  What am I missing?

My Yelmalian Light Son used Light, and never bothered to learn Lantern.

Sunbright is good.  So is Catseye, though several other cults can have access.

3 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

I have never considered her to be  god or goddess. Nope, since finding out about her in '83 I have always considered her not to be a deity, or more powerful than them but beyond them. 

ETA

Not akin to them.

 

That is a reasonable take.  She could be a "super God".

However, the Beast People "worship" her, which confuses things.  Or at least confuses me.  🙂

Somewhat OT, but a few months ago Jeff posted a list of Major and Minor gods.

Every single member of our long timer RQ gaming group was shocked that Arachne Solara made neither list.  Hopefully there was a typo or misunderstanding somewhere.

To be fair to, and to say something nice, about Chaosium, their focus on the major, common cults, such as Orlanth, Ernalda, and Humakt, and "subsuming" some of the lesser cults into them as subcults, greatly simplifies things for newer players.  Which I think is a good thing, to bring in new Runequest players.  Just a little disappointing to us old timers who want to learn more about the minor cults, and have them play a meaningful role in our games.

16 minutes ago, hipsterinspace said:

I don’t think balance is a really concern for me, having less magic in return for a more interesting character is perfectly fine by me, different cults have different niches. My big issue is that this seems to entirely obviate any niche for an independent cult to even exist.

Agree completely.

Yelmalio may be a "weak" cult, but at least it has a niche.

Cults like Heler and Odalya, if they can be readily accessed as subcults of Orlanth, seem to have little reason to exist as independent cults.

1 hour ago, hipsterinspace said:

seems like that is going to completely discourage any independent initiation into the former

Completely true.  The authors' complete disdain of "play balance", which in practice is more like deliberately blowing huge holes in game balance, leads to most cults being highly discouraged for a thinking player.

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

A candidate for initiation not familiar to the temple hierarchy must pass a test equivalent to that of initiation"

If an existing Orlanth Adventurous PC is joining another subcult, even Odayla, wouldn't they already be "familiar"?  Or, they spend a little time, money, and buy free drinks to become familiar.  A very gamey way of initiating into Odayla or Yinkin  without any need to hunt or fight a scary bear or live in those cold, wet boonies for a year.

We have wondered is a candidate with no Earth Rune and 10% Fertility could basically bribe the Ernaldan Priestess to become "familiar" and let them join.

IMO, "Honor" is, in some cases, left deliberately open to interpretation.  And different cultures or cults think differently.  Humakti Honor is different than Orlanthi.  In those cases, it's best to talk with the player and have them express, from their character's POV, why they think an action is honorable or dishonorable.  Maybe make minor adjustments.  But a GM trying to impose a global honor code is likely to cause blowback.

Let the players decide, within reason.  Then hold them to that for the future.

30 minutes ago, Godlearner said:

Unless it actually has intellegence, it should not be able to dodge.

I agree completely with the rest of your post, and I could accept that there is something that might prohibit Elementals from dodging, but not just intelligence. Animals can dodge, yet have no INT. It's an interesting question.

17 hours ago, Andrew M said:

He and the other 2 pc's then cut the shade apart in a single round as they lack the ability to dodge or parry and have no armour

It's possibly non-standard, but I usually give Elementals a modest skill at Dodge.

Also, the summoners (e.g. trolls) are able to cast protective spells on them, such as Shield or Protection.  Well worth it on a large elemental.

1 hour ago, jajagappa said:

It's all right in the Jonstown Compendium on DTRPG!  If you just click on the JC image under Chaosium, the intro paragraph tells what the JC is, and how to submit content including the link.

For direct reference here: https://support.drivethrurpg.com/hc/en-us/articles/360036896591-Jonstown-Compendium-Content-Guidelines

Thanks for the link, though, when I click on it, it doesn't take be to https://support.drivethrurpg.com/..., it takes me to the top of this BRP thread.  Please correct...

BTW, I am familiar with the JC stuff, but providing the link may answer OP's question simpler than a lot of back and forth discussion.

1 hour ago, Nick Brooke said:

They’re all acceptable sources. You can’t just copy or paraphrase any of them. You have to write something original, instead.

Nick, I think it might help some of us if you added to this thread a link or source which more fully describes the JC guidelines.  Thanks.

Armies and Enemies of Dragon Pass, by Martin Helsdon covers Lunars, Sartar, and some "independents"

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/296535/The-Armies-and-Enemies-of-Dragon-Pass

1 hour ago, davecake said:

 

I can't figure out how to delete my reply, so just edited to this.

3 hours ago, davecake said:

Another crazy sounding defence is that you can't be engulfed if you are already inside an elemental - so Orlanthi inside an air elemental. 

Sorry, no, a wanton misreading of the rules.

OTOH, I strongly agree with your comments that Yelmalio is good at fighting trolls.

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

Send in a fire elemental to attack the shade before it engulfs a victim. The shade has nothing to counterattack but will take fire damage.

Fire Elementals are tough to come by for "typical" Sartarite adventurers.  Though I suspect our group may start looking for them!

44 minutes ago, Andrew M said:

Preferably with missile weapons before it can get close

Hmm, maybe one issue is that shades are typically encountered in caves or enclosed spaces.  We've done ok with missile weapons vs most other elementals.

Good advice overall.

Our RQG group has been in a few battles involving shades.  Once it was on our side, the other times, as an opponent.  They have been awesome and effective.  I wonder if we have been playing them wrong, or what counters can be used.  Here is how we have been playing, which is possibly wrong (?).

1. They engulf you.  The victim cannot can dodge or parry.
2. They attack POW vs CON.  Most characters have CON around 14 or so (?).  CON is not something that gets boosted by POW resisting crystals, being a Rune Lord, etc.  Nor do Shield or Countermagic protect.  So even a small Shade has a reasonable chance to succeed, and a Medium a good chance (> 50%).
3. Victim rolls on the Fear Shock Table, and prays to roll higher than 05.  But a typical roll has them collapsed, and very likely out of action for several rounds.  This cannot be dispelled.

The Vinga Cult Special spell Fearless is a perfect counter.  Berserker helps a lot, but that is another rare spell, and with some serious downsides.  Vigor helps some.  SunBright can kill them.  Another fairly rare spell - a nice plus for Yelmalio.  Are we missing another counter?

Note: Clever baddies will put Mobility and Protection on the Shade.  But, the one time we used one, even a raw Small Shade (who rolled lucky on POW vs CON attacks) temporarily took out most of a Lunar Squad, at least giving our attacking Orlanthi time to land and get organized.

1 hour ago, Richard S. said:

To note, the code of honor Humakti follow is not the exact same as "Orlanthi" cultural honor. Orlanth follows Humakt's code, sure, but it's also the same code followed by the Solar war gods (save Shargash, of course) and (most of the time) Yanafal.

https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/honor-and-combat/

Thanks for the link!  I'm intrigued by this line:

"The rules of honor do not apply to animals, monsters, undead things unless they are capable of communicating or otherwise demonstrating that they do follow the rules of honor."

1. Maybe I'm a softie, but I definitely think that honor should apply to animals.  One should not ambush and kill and entire group / family of deer or wolves.  Kill what you need for food, or to scare away the predator, but don't slaughter them all.
2. There is no exception for chaotics.  So, Humakti must show honor to Broo, Ogres, etc.  The Bat is given as an exception, which makes sense, but proves that "relatively normal" chaos is still subject to the rules of Honor.

2 hours ago, Eff said:

Argrath is a guy who's suffered. At the hands of the Lunars when young

I'm going to differ here.  True, Argrath suffered.  But so did thousands of other Sartarites.  As I've mentioned before, most of our PCs are orphans.  With some parents destroyed by the Bat.  Same for lots of NPC Sartarites.

We choose not to be psychopaths.   Well, one PC has a very high Hate Lunars, but he's no Argrath Destroyer of Worlds.

Argrath's actions, for good or evil, cannot be justified by "Lunars killed his parents, boo hoo".  There's a far deeper reason, whether mystical (e.g., he's the Shadow) or psychological (e.g. he's a psycho David Bowie).

6 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Flamal, Father of Plants, is the most obvious.

Perhaps should be "was the most obvious."? 🙂

If the one male nature spirit we can cite was killed in the God Time, that seems to answer OP's question.

I find it humorous that, at the same time, this thread is praising Passions, while another thread Negative Passions During Character Creation) points out flaws or confusions in the implementation.  I agree with both.

Since a real world friend is having a "significant" birthday, it begs this exceptionally nerdy and geeky question:

In Glorantha, do most cultures use base 10 for their counting and math?  Base 12 like some ancients?  Or something else?  (Thumbless Morokanth?)

Special hits all doing slightly different things, some of which are scattered over different pages, are a freaking nightmare and waste of time paging through the rules at the game table.  Luckily, most of our players use swords so there is less to remember.  Though we always forget the "shock" rules.

(added) The rules bias towards slashing weapons is an expression of the general rules bias towards Humakt and Orlanth.

Arguing with myself, I do realize that replacing two feuding flawed leaders, Kallyr and Leika, with one awesome heroic leader, Argrath, makes Chaosium's task of writing and publishing The Great Campaign a lot easier.