Rodney Dangerduck

In our campaign, the mainly Colymar PCs took the Black Spear (thank you @Nick Brookefor the great adventure seed) to Pavis to meet "that Argrath Guy (TM)", and then took steps, mainly arranging for material support for his troops, to ensure that Leika would gain great credit and favor with the Future Prince. Basically, raising her to first among equals of the tribal leaders.

This ignores human emotions like love, desire, jealousy, and hate. Which, to me at least, are far more interesting than marrying some shepherd girl with wide hips from the Swabdish clan, so that your clan can have better access to their well. One could argue that my approach is too "modern" or "romantic", and they'd probably be right. This explains why my favorite Glorantha superhero is Jar-Eel. She seems to be the only super-hero who loves anybody other than herself.

I've seen this take on the gods from @Andrew Logan Montgomery yourself, and others. However, the Glorantha Sourcebook is chock full of references to gods having lovers, wives, and children. For example, p83, Flamal "met Ernalda and begat Aldrya", then "he had known Triolina and fathered Murthdrya." And Heortling Mythology, in places (page 72), explicitly calls Vinga the daughter of Orlanth and Ernalda. The "loose metaphor" concept is interesting, and I could run with that, and, ultimately, I'm not sure how much it really matters in day to day Runequest of ordinary people and adventurers. However, IMO, it's not well supported by the source material.

Thank Jeff, very helpful. I was missing that fairly obvious point. Doh!

I'm having great difficulty understanding marriage in Orlanthi society. Various things about Glorantha are hard to understand for various people, and this aspect is hard for me. The Earthly concepts of "love", "fidelity", or "better to marry than to burn with passion" don't apply, leaving me somewhat lost. There are a few bigwigs, but the overwhelming number of Gloranthans are not political. So their marriages are not going to be political. Not even to the point of passing down the farmstead to the children, as the land is largely owned by the clan through Ernalda. And reproduction is easy, and common, outside of marriage. The out of wedlock children are full members of, and cared for, by the clan. There are no negative social connotations, no scarlet As. It's a requirement for Ernaldan priestesses! So I guess it's the "social responsibility?" (the first sentence of Jeff I quoted). What is meant by that? One of our PCs (the Thane) married Brightflower, (o.k., here's a case of a political marriage) and others are thinking about marriage, one seriously, so it would be nice to better understand this.

On Earth, we usually have these types of marriages. Would you describe Earth divorce as "straightforward and easy". Now add the fact that the gods are definitely real and can do you significant and immediate harm if you cross them.

Good question. Though I'm not sure that divorce among Orlanthi is "easy". It is a sacred oath. Interested in responses and "takes" from others.

An excellent point, really nice. In our game, the PCs got involved (somewhat) in the politicking, and my PC, a Kallyr fan (though serving with Leika, the mixed loyalties were very interesting to play) gave an impassioned speech, with an interesting twist on why Kallyr had not returned. Note, Thomas is a bad guy, specific to our campaign, enemy of the party, and definitely not an honorable man. "Thomas is an honorable man, but Kallyr was my friend, faithful and just to me. Unlike him, I was trusted by the Starbrow to take part in her great final quest. My respect for her is second to none. The calls to return her to life are failing because she does not wish to live. She is spent, her children all dead, the kingdom's enemies defeated. The wounds she received from the Lunars could not be healed, leaving her in dire pain. Let us take up her great cause. Let us not force her to return to a life of pain and sadness. Let her rest in the halls of the All Father, with her friends and kin, in whose great company she shall know neither shame nor defeat."

I've "converted" mainly from movies and TV shows. A recent session was, very very loosely, based upon Die Hard. The current one is loosely based upon a BBC Musketeers episode. To me, the imagery, notable scenes and characters, and key lines, like "Yippee-ka-yay" or "I'll be back", are much more useful than stat blocks that need to be converted anyhow. Ironically, the player whose PC was most involved in the "Die Hard" scenario had never seen the movie.

My character started off not liking Leika, mainly due to the way the GM was playing her. I grew to appreciate her as a practical leader who protects her tribe and gets the job done. As, did, eventually, my character, one of our few PCs whose Loyalty Leika is comparable to Loyalty Argrath. It's a shame that "It is known" that Leika will fall by the wayside and Argrath will be the next great leader, because, frankly, none of our other PCs even pretends not to know, so they all ramped up their Loyalty Argrath and ignored Leika. Disappointing, but to be expected, and, in the end, not that big a deal.

I wonder what % of the varying Gloranthas do treat Vinga as independent. Ours does. Her position as Orlanth's Daughter is pretty clearly laid out in Heortling Mythology, in a few places, (though there are contradictions). e.g. Page 72: "Vinga is a daughter of Orlanth and Ernalda and is the Fighting Daughter who fought in all the great battles alongside her father and the other Thunder Brothers."

We had our Alynx speak Stormspeech, which seemed more mythically reasonable. Also gave the PCs an incentive to work on their Stormspeech. I agree that having them speak at all is a bit strange.

A candidate who is familiar to the temple has only one requirement: be 50% or better in a relevant rune. Surely a clever (or wealthy) PC could make sure that their awakened friend becomes familiar to the temple. The ability to speak to the examiner is irrelevant. If I, or another player, ever run a mute PC (this thread gave me that idea!) they would have no problem initiating into a cult. (For the record, I think the super-minimal requirement is way too easy and open to munchkinnery, but them's the rules, and corrupt bribable priests are all too common in history)

A couple of our players kept some of Berevenenos' magic items (I recall the the super-javelin, possibly others), then, a year later, "compromised with" (actually, aided) a Dragon. As GM I have them a stern talking to, and they returned all the items.

Since we knew that we would forget, or, even should we remember, the PCs would possibly be away on some world-saving mission at the wrong time, our PCs used their "pull" with Leika to have her (or one of her minions who can read and write down these things) remember to send the offerings.

Our player with an awakened Alynx made up the excellent back story that it was the subject of strange sorcerous experiments at the City of Wonders, and his PC freed it there.

I'm with @svensson: With a species max POW of 28, the alynx will quickly become the best spellcaster in the party. Using them in combat is idiotic and criminal negligence. Use them as buffers or befuddlers.

Maybe this advice should be in the GM's Guide. 😞

What is a Board of Nails? My google-fu comes up empty.

W&E didn't exist when our player rolled his Family History. I agree that awakened Alynxes are overpowered and making them rare is a good idea.

I would accept any order at all.

Yes, the DI should fit the deity. In our campaign, an NPC Storm Khan led an expedition under the Big Rubble into a maze of Krarshtkid tunnels that our party had discovered and briefly scouted. They ran into serious trouble. His DI did stuff to help their party, (I presume some heals, Impede Chaos, etc...) and to Tport his Ernaldan wife to safety. But no way that Storm Bull will "save" you againt chaos. A song about Khan Orat (based on Lord Franklin) here: http://gloranthagame.pbworks.com/w/page/143253243/Khan_Orat

Having recently (past few years) GMed D&D 3.5, about which I know very little, and RQ, about which I know a lot (40+ years of experience), RQG makes far far higher demands upon the GM. This is arguably a good thing. However, it does mean that a GM guide would be very useful.

We have him as a corrupt rich SOB merchant / quartermaster type high up in Argrath's entourage. I didn't realize he was also (formerly?) a pirate. Now my PC hates him even more. 🙂

Max for each rune pool. So the rules encourage powergamers to join multiple cults. Which I agree is not a great thing. Power players could also consider doing enchantments, which, I think, do not count against their CHA limit.