Rodney Dangerduck

5 hours ago, g33k said:

Far too much of "meaningful" history & historical events is defined by the battles

I like many of your ideas for "other" events in family history, but the fact is that the titanic Air vs. Moon struggle is intended as the driving force for recent and near future Sartar History.  Hence all the battles - and yes, there may be too many.  If you want a mere Ogre, not The Empire, to blight the land, you should pick a time frame other than circa 1625, or a Homeland far away.

11 minutes ago, Thaz said:

The stuff that shows up in songs of action and adventure. Action Movie fodder.

Even in the "standard" scenarios, there's no lack of Female action heroes.  Kallyr, Leika, Nameless, Jar-Eel.  And many of the scenarios involve doing stuff to aid the Clan or aid the Ernaldan temple.

IMHO (and, I'm a guy), based on what we have run, which I believe is pretty "typical", there's actually a lack of male action heroes and adventures focused on more "male" cults, like Orlanth and Storm Bull.  Asborn keeps dying 🙂, Hastur is a scholar, etc...  It's been well over a year game time and my Vinga worshipper has yet to find a studly male warrior type worthy of her affections.  🙂

That said, good luck in your endeavor and please post occasional updates!  Looking forward to some good ideas from a different perspective.

11 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

Leverage has five archetypes

Big shout out to Nick for recommending Leverage!

Lunars, being more "modern" in feel, fit it well with a lot more TV / movie action / thriller tropes.  There's always some evil conspiracy somewhere...

One of my characters was, essentially, La Femme Nikita.  Spy / assassin working for a small secret agency reporting to Jar-Eel.  Another PC was an undercover Danfive political officer, and man, did we have fun together!  The other PCs thought he was a dumb Bisos fighter and I was the Yanafal NCO 2nd in command.

1 hour ago, John Biles said:

When Argath tries to get Kaethela to make him King, they could do something like bringing back Belintar or the Great Old One, so it doesn't bow to him.

When Argath gets mad at Harrek for sacking Black Horse Country, they could recruit Harrek to fight Argath on the side of the Lunars.

That would probably result in Argath being crushed at the Battle of Heroes.

 

In a way these are good ideas.

In another way, they emphasize how unimportant and underpowered the pitiful PCs are.  Which, ultimately, I think is a huge problem with the official Glorantha History unless you Insist on YGMV.

The Griffin Mountain troll tomb has good ideas but beware, it is vicious - used one of my few D.I.s there.  You may need to tone it down.

2 hours ago, Puckohue said:

I'd only enforce a roll if the Passion is at 80% or higher

I know that's the rule, but, for the case of Fear, not sure it works.  Maybe if you were talking about hypothetically meeting a Dragon I'd waive the roll.  But actually meeting a Dragon should trigger something. 

Otherwise all Fears at less than 80% are effectively meaningless.

Maybe this should apply to other Passions too.  If you have Love Family at 60% and encounter a father just fouly slain by bad guys, the roll should probably be required.  If you are discussing a Father's Day gift, roll not required.

37 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

but I think intent comes into it.

Of course intent comes into it.

If a Chalana Arroy is riding a horse, and somebody throws themselves under the horse and gets hurt, do you toss them out of the cult?  If you gag and bind a Wind Lord in a cell, then parade chaos in front of them, so they cannot recite "Foul chaos...", will Orlanth punish them?

As to the question of "what are clothes", I'd go with a minor modification of a rule for the Race to Alaska:. (r2ak.com)

Their rule is that if they have to consider consulting a lawyer about whether you are disqualified, you are disqualified.

So, if the GM has to even think about consulting this thread or other rules on whether something is clothing, it is.

Charisma is a very effective and fun spell.  Definitely my favorite "offbeat" rune magic.

How come "restoring the Cosmic Balance" always involves "my side wins?"

Sheng may be an embodiment of the Imperial Sun.  He is also a horrible person clearly inspired by Genghis Khan etc.  You completely refused to address that.

1 hour ago, jajagappa said:

If we follow Jeff's comments that the LBQ is about restoring Cosmic Order, then the return of Sheng is the return of the "rightful" Solar Emperor, ...

Similarly the "holding back of Winter", which the Kalikos expedition was about, was clearly a violation of the Cosmic Order and a suppression of Valind's/winter's rightful place within it. 

So the "rightful order" necessitates putting a Genghis Khan inspired figure on the throne, plus the starvation and privation of many thousands?

Chaos is looking pretty good - sign me up @Nick Brooke  🙂

5 hours ago, Eff said:

For Argrath's lack of character: 

@Jeff keeps insisting he's very Honorable.  I guess we will see how it plays out.

Given than, in our campaign, Kallyr (and others) just died heroically after enduring great pain and nasty Lunar curses, while Argrath is taking credit for some of her deeds, maybe involved with her death (?), and is summering in Pavis after previously allying with Harrek's mass-murderous pirates, you might say my character has doubts.  🙂

8 hours ago, soltakss said:

It would have to be chainmail or some form of articulated scale, but an intelligent brontosaur Rune Lord should be OK.

It always makes me laugh that we accept zombie shark-hybrids, great flying bats and mile-long dragons, but armour on a dinosaur is too much.

The Bat and Dragons are innately super super magical, basically Gods, and vital to Glorantha's deep, rich mythology.

An armor clad dinosaur is none of those.

8 hours ago, Thaz said:

Barding, Crossbows, Great Swords and a host of stuff I cant recall as I have only drunk 1/2 of my first cup of coffee today, exist. 

"Bronze Age" Great Swords and crossbows always bothered me too...  😞  Too many years of experience with historical miniatures.

Iron armor on a brontosaurus is several orders of magnitude higher on the munchkinnery scale that our current group would tolerate.  (In a distant past group, Ray Turney had exactly that!)  As always, YGMV.

Serious barding (more than just light leather) was basically unknown until the Parthians, circa 500BC.  And even then it was rare.

If you are going with the whole "Glorantha bronze age vibe", IMO it should only be available to groups like the Carmanians, Western "Knights", and Sir Ethilrist.

Obviously, YGMV.

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

Slaughtering millions of chaos-worshipers

The vast majority of Lunar citizens (and subjects and peoples) do not "worship" nor "embrace" chaos.  If religious, most just accept it as part of the world.  If not, they ignore it the best they can and move on with their lives.

I can agree with you that Orlanth is a bit of a dolt.  🙂

On 6/12/2020 at 11:26 PM, Joerg said:

There is no way that Orlanth can abandon his marriage to Ernalda. Without her, he is no king

If the only reason he is King is because of a marriage, he is no King.  He is consort of The Queen.

Are you saying that Argrath is forced to throw down the Moon and slaughter millions of people because Orlanth is a dolt, or, alternatively, Ernalda is an <insert nasty misogynist phrase of your choice here>?

On 6/14/2020 at 8:39 AM, Charles said:

At some con, I remember Greg telling us that he'd like to set it up so the decision of whether to resurrect Kallyr be left in the hands of the player characters, who would have a lot of knowledge of why she would not want it. Her remaining closest friends would not want to make that decision.

What a great idea - that Greg person was really smart!  🙂

Having seen Kallyr 's very sad and feeble state before the Battle of the Queens, my Kallyr-fangirl would definitely let her travel on to the halls of Orlanth and rest in peace.

Trouble...
I don't want no more of you
So won't you be kind to me
Just let me go where
I'll have to go there

15 hours ago, Runeblogger said:

I'd rule that the curse is they don't have wings to fly, so the Rune spell Flight allows them to fly as any other Orlanthi.

So Yelm cursed humans too?  This "curse" is meaningless.

And, as a followup, what are known "honorable" symbols to communicate hostile intent?

9 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

Exceptionally violent bridesmaids, and men wearing dresses, immediately spring to mind. But I'm funny like that.

You gonna mess with a Babs Gor Bridesmaid?  🙂

A little more seriously, in our game, my Vingan PC was Brightflower's Bridesmaid and I was kindof hoping for some violence, or at least roughhousing.  Was thinking of running a scenario where she got captured by mistake by a rival clan.  She was also sister of the Groom, so would be interesting.

15 minutes ago, soltakss said:

No, Orlanth did it as well. The Scarf of Mist is effectively Orlanth taking a concubine from the water tribe, for example.

Historically, it happened quite often. Genghis Khan's first wife was stolen by a rival and he had to steal her back again. In the Middle ages, heiresses were often abducted and married against their will.

 

Bridesmaids were there to protect the Bride or at least try to confuse the bandits.

2 hours ago, soltakss said:

I can see the Marriage Tour happening as well

When one of our PCs became Thane of Apple Lane, two of us, my rowdy Vingan who is his sister, and an even rowdier Storm Bull, did some "looking for marriage candidates".  Our priorities were a good skill at "Manage Household", and large, er, "tracts of land".  🙂

Maybe this belongs in a topic of it's own, but Glorantha History has a theme of

1. Some group tries to "improve" the world and man's understanding and control of it
2. Things go wrong
3. A great hero or cataclysm sets the world back.

Does anybody know this: was Greg a big fan of the classic post-apocalyptic sci-fi novel A Canticle for Leibowitz?

3 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

If I ever ran the whole thing, I would be disappointed with my players if they never decided that enough is enough with regards to Argrath. Making peace with the Good Empire (especially if it's just the breakaway Provinces, the more acceptable part of the Empire) really should be the way to go. But Argrath is far too obsessed for that.  

Having recently watched Good Omens, I came up with a similar concept.