French Desperate WindChild

14 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

If you are referencing PC's?

I don't understand why a temple would keep followers tucked away in the basement when they bring glory to their patrons by adventuring, doing mundane adventurer things why stay/keep them for weeks/seasons/years at a temple hidden away when you could continue bringing glory out in the world?

I imagine the PC's would be awarded with benefits rather than be punished by being sent to the basement to study especially when they are paying money in tithing already. These things should be more freely given as blessings especially as the tithing increases?

The extended temple stay makes me think of that old soap opera Days of Our Lives... the PC's days are like "sand in an hour glass..."

Also we always thought "there is always another way" isn't about a violent or peaceful resolution its about another type of magic. Why not just find a mangus and have them teach you as most divine spells have replicants in sorcery or you could make it up? The PC would know the spell and would not have to go pray, whatever to use it again...

I suppose all three types of magic are useful and were what drew my friends and I to this game to begin with...

My apologies if I missed the point but MGF is not sitting in a cubical copying scrolls... but then again if you get a read/write ability gain roll at the end well...

Well of course it is mgf 

jaja explains my thought about stormwalkers better than me so don’t answer anymore about them 🙂 

more generally I see cults, subcults etc as kind of way of life that pcs and npcs want to follow

they are not ( for me ) a source of powers that pcs can pick up what they need to be more powerful for all types of campaign

so if (sub)cult focus its activity on one mission, anything else is a waste of time / power. Why me, priest of XXX, should waste time/give powerful stuff to a (n)pc who doesn’t dedicate her effort to my cult’s mission ?

a lot of (sub)cults are playable in a large scope of campaigns (even chaotic in my opinion) but few are … specific (?) and more playable (for me) in dedicated campaign

there is another thing to keep in mind :

yes the cult book says what spells you can learn when you (pc or npc) join the stormwalkers. That is the subcult.

now, if you are a full time stormwalker, not an adventurer who wants/has to travel in the world, but a resident of the temple, studying  the deep mysteries of the winds, acting to keep air safe, to keep the breath of the world pure, then probably, you visit, sometimes, godtime. And probably, as any heroquester, you come back from the godtime with some specific habilities.

so I imagine playing a stormwalker is not too efficient (from a power perspective, of course it may interest people like me for the background/roleplay) because the very difference is when you are with other stormwalkers (to stack spells) for a price of a lot of time:

I don't imagine that a character join the subcult, sacrifice POW, then leave the temple to do her business, and when she wants a new spell go back to the temple for a week. Initiates should at least stay for seasons (would say years) of study/worship/devotion before working again on mundane business

On 9/29/2023 at 9:38 PM, Wheel Shield said:

But Yelmalio or Argan Argar?

for me there are some things to answer between player and/or GM

1) Why the character choose /was chosen by the god ?

 so she/he (player only) has to imagine the pc reason of this call. As a GM I consider I have to adapt my campaign to my players and will never ask why do you want (well I ask to check the player understand how the background/my understanding of the background is, to avoid any issue, but not to "judge" the choice).

2) How the pc become initiate ?

In this campaign, your first difficulty is that it starts before initiation. So you (GM only) have to do something blocking the standard orlanth/ernalda initiation (was she/he lost at any step of the ritual, not founding the way to leave the cave, the pit, etc..). Then the elders consider that the pc must find his/her way differently. That's not a ban, as good orlanthi they know that Orlanth welcomed strange gods in his tribe. Of course you may find some "social" opponent in the clan who will criticize the pc (hook for some scenarios)

then both player and gm could "work" to imagine how the pc understand what is the cult to join and who will inititate her/him (maybe some test before, some oath, etc... maybe not playing the ritual in the same way than others as the pc already played one (and fails)

3) always follow @jajagappa advices

On 9/29/2023 at 10:53 PM, Wheel Shield said:

Not at all important, but actually the player that asked about Yelmalio is female. She's comfortable with playing male characters though. I'm not sure which gender she had in mind.)

by the way even if the "standard" of yelmalio cultist is a man, women are accepted (of course you will find some [-@§! so sometimes difficulties, but it could be an interesting challenge, just check with your player if it is something interesting to play or not)

11 hours ago, Godlearner said:

To bind to a wyter implies that one is an initiate, so I would say you still need the Daka Fal mask

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depending on the local traditions the priest might be a Rune Priest, Rune Lord, God-talker, or even just an initiate.

so as it depends on local traditions, we can say that the family tradition is the elder, the choosen, or any specific condition of this family; you just need to sacrifice one POW to this ancestor , etc... wyter is not linked to daka fal at all. And that allows that this wyter may have one rune spell

I prefer this freedom, without any rule change. Of course I just share my opinion, and you can houserule what you want 🙂  (I do it for other things)

Note that i apply the same rule for any local spirit who is not strongly associated with any cult

2 hours ago, Godlearner said:

I am not sying that there should not be shamans for the Daka Fal, I am saying that it should be possible for a Priest/Godtalker to exist without having to be a shaman.

My idea is a little bit different

you may worship your ancestors in different way.

One way is dealing with all your ancestors, with the ability of summoning one of them or another one (somewhere you know the ancestors = the spirit) this way is the daka fal system, and the leader is the one who is able to deal with a lot of spirits (= shaman) so shaman = priest and priest = shaman

another way is to worship your ancestors as a group or only one ancestor (the founder, things like that) then I see it like a wyter: the community is the family and the leader of the family is bound with the wyter (bestiary p174)

then no need of any shaman, even no need of Daka Fal mask. Just be the leader, do the job as any community chief, respect the wyter/ancestor(s) and any requirements requested (here one family wyter may have different requirement than another, gm is free to create what she wants) and the wyter will protect your family

On 9/27/2023 at 9:03 PM, metcalph said:

the collective intellects of

3 hours ago, davecake said:

The Invisible God is the One

20 minutes ago, Joerg said:

realm of oneness with the Creator.

you all are talking about this one. that seems to me recurrent in glorantha (draconic mysticism, maybe any mysticism) and that is something I'm so far (culture, education, studies, etc...)... I don't "feel" / "understand" what it implies, except that I feel I miss something important in my favorite world.

do you have some references/books explaining this philosophy (or school of thought, or any good term, no offense) ?

 something for people who did not take any theology course and have a too old brain to understand it easily  🙂 !

9 minutes ago, Mark Mohrfield said:

Which raises the question of how they pay for it. I can’t imagine Aldryami regularly using money, except to outsiders.

Services asked by the shaman ?

or maybe just a dryad decision : teach my pixies these spells and the forest will be stronger 

15 minutes ago, kalidor said:

Can Sartar be aproached as an Ancestors Cult?

Why not

however there are very few living people who can claim sartar as an ancestor.. Argrath and … well is there someone else ?

seems to me easier to contact Sartar with Orlanth Rex subcult (in sartar land of course)

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The ancestor’s Spirit Combat skill is equal to its POW×5. If the candidate can defeat the ancestor and reduce its magic points to 0, the spirit teaches the candidate the secrets of Daka Fal and awakens their fetch. The candidate becomes a full shaman (RuneQuest, pages 351–363) and must choose shamanic abilities and taboos

reading again these sentences, I'm not sure I understand well (vs core rules)

1) the Daka Fal shaman candidate meets an ancestor and not the bad man ( DF easier than "core" shaman)

2) the DF candidate must win when a "core" shaman must survive ( DF harder than "core" shaman)

3) the DF candidate must fight until the ancestor has 0 magic point (or until she loses) when a "core" shaman must fight 1d6 rounds

4) the DF candidate, only if she wins, gains one ability for each round she is victorious and "gains" one taboo for each round she loses. same than "core shaman" except it can be done after 30 rounds

Am I correct ?

or if a DF candidate is not able to win in 6 rounds it is a defeat (good bye, see you next year) ?

Thanks a lot @metcalph even if I needed a lot of time to understand the depth of your answer (I m too Cartesian to measure all the involvements)

it is hard then😅

So one question 

when you talk about Wizards, do you talk about anyone able to use sorcery maybe with enough skill level / requirements) like LM or lunars or Orlanth or Zorak Zoran or… sorcerers or only the zzaburi (only those who follow one sect of Malkioni ?)

2 hours ago, g33k said:

This is (IIRC in-canon) one of the claims made by some humans (as to why the Morokanth won); and made by some Morokanth (as to why no other Four-Leg Peoples won what was supposed to be a "fair" (50/50) contest).

So, both sides claiming the other side "cheated."

(My own point is that such cheating is overwhelmingly-unlikely)

Yeah i agree they cheated

my point is they did not cheat the gods. They cheated the losers

that’s different 🙂

2 hours ago, JRE said:

Taking things one step forward, what if Third Age Arkat, which Argrath is a part of, has decided just that, after the horrors of the Monster Empire (and other catastrophes all over the place), the only way to break the cycle and stop Chaos being an existential menace is to break the Godtime, which means breaking all gods present at the casting of the net. Therefore the ending of King of Sartar.

Because as long as Chaos is part of the compromise, even if unwilling, it will always be there as a menace, it is its role. The only way to make integration possible is to break the shackles that make roles unchangeable.

Arkat/Argrath complete Sedenya's mission, and she becomes the White Moon.

For me that’s the point 

I would not say breaking but severing

let the mundane world for mundane people and new arkati will not have to waste time protecting the godtime anymore from mundane chaotic (or acting for chaos from their perspective) but will focus to protect the mundane world from chaos agent

the alliance between Argrath and storm bull may drive to it :

when storm bullets react and are the best for that, arkati plan and act, and are the best for that (illuminated humakti, LM, Orlanthi… why not white lunars… etc )

then the great disaster from the sea has an explanation : Magasta and friends don’t want to be banned from the mundane waters

On 9/16/2023 at 10:36 PM, g33k said:

But really, people:  you think those pitiful, doomed, barely-hanging-on survivors had the Mythic resources to cheat their gods??!

But who says the gods were cheated ?

maybe the gods did not care a all. They just need eaters and eated

Maybe the cheat was just that they did not follow the rules those who considered themselves as superior (aka the 2-legs) defined and probably the 4-legs followed… after all the principles of the herd is to follow the leader without questions.

there is no hunting beasts in the convenant among the 4-legs. No lion, no tiger, no sabretooth , wolf or bear !The only predators were humans, so easy to win against peaceful beasts

Maybe the cheat was only that morokanths dis not follow the 2-legs who claimed there were predators by nature but resisted and applied their own strategy of defense.

IMO that’s good for the gods. It shows for ever that humans are not so much powerful and should not try to challenge the gods

. Keep humble guys or you may meet the same fate than those who believed they were superior of these pitiful doomed, barely-hanging-on survivors

1 hour ago, Malin said:

Also, the hides in Sun County are not owned by a family, they are parceled out by the Sun Dome. A lot of time, political connections are more important there than an illustrious past. They are also shared by lot, so it's not like every family gets the same land each year. We're about 106 000 words into our tentatively named "Life and Traditions Under the Sun Dome" (one reason for my rules questions) so I might be digging deep into stuff here, but yeah, your Glorantha will always vary, but War Rune Magic for Yelmalio to sacrifice for is sorely lacking.

I based my answer about ancestor on the sun county supplement, well the french version "les guerriers du soleil" so sorry for the translations (I put the FR version in case of):

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FR scenario "la ferme chapeau lapin" --> EN scenario "hat rabbit farm" ?

As you said, the land is the count ownership, but there are some interesting things at the end of the scenario

about FR "la concession de seigneurie d'Oreilles Dorées" -> EN "concession for the seigneurie of golden ears" ?

there is an old adage :

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FR "trois prélèvements vérifient la coutume" -> EN "three tax levies verify the custom"

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FR "si le fief paie ses impôts pendant trois années consécutives, elle (sic) devient virtuellement la propriété des aventuriers, et ils pourront la transmettre à leurs héritiers sans rencontrer d'obstacles"

EN "if the fief pays its taxes for three consecutive years, it (sic) virtually becomes the property of the adventurers, and they will be able to transmit it to their heirs without encountering obstacles"

so my conclusion (is it specific to the sun county because traditionalist ? or all counties apply about the same ?) :  there are to way to obtain lands in yelamlio counties:

a) you must prove your martial value (or do some exceptional things for your count) and you gain "new land"

b) you must continue to manage the farm you get before because your previous (a)  or because your ancestor's (a) without any issue with the tax (that could be difficult of course)

it may depends on the sect, and it would interest me to know the differences

Do zzaburi believe that the invisible god is a "real god" (greater than any other entity of course)= sentient, able to decide, to act

• then its worship is useful to "feed" it and obtain some magic/miracle from it

Do zzaburi believe that the invisible god is far beyond any gods of glorantha = sentient (the creator decided to create glorantha, for example), but will never (maybe some exception) act in glorantha ?

• then its worship by the people is useful to "feed" the universe and/or the zzaburi themselves

Do zzaburi believe that the invisible god is an abstraction, the nature, the universe laws, equations, things like that

• then its worship is just a kind of crowd manipulation to convince the people to feed the cosmos (because zzaburi believe it is needed but they are convinced that a too large part of people will refuse to sacrifice if they knew there is no "feedback") and they may take a part of the sacrifice for themselves ?
• or its worship is a very big crowd manipulation to convince the people to sacrifice (mp/POW/cows) to themselves because in fact... there is nothing to feed and zzaburi are the only option to "protect" the people from strangers (people, spirits and gods) ?

5 hours ago, Malin said:

Yelmalio dad: 2 points tied up in bless crops, 1 free for emergency healing/cloud clear, returned every season.

Yelmalio grampa: All 3 free for that old man wisdom (Heal Body emergencies), can do Divinations, Heal Wound, Cloud Clear.

my main concern (but that my understanding of the cult, I may be wrong, It would not be the first time :p) is the yelmalio aspect of your family:

warning : all value judgements I expose is based on the yelmalian perspective -or what I imagine to be, don't hesitate to tell me if I am out - , in all cases it is not my irl values 😛

if they have 4 hides they are near to be rune lord/ priest for one of them. That would surprise me, then, than your yelmalians have no war spells. They should first focus on these spells. And if they have a lot of rp, then yes why not bless crops, but learning it in the first steps of the career in the cult ? for a simple farmer, why not, but for 4 hides!

Of course they may thank any warrior ancestor who gained this land (and all the previous members who succeed to manage the land well - if not they should not have the land -), but what a shame to see his heirs becoming simple farmers

so if your family leader (dad ?) is rich, he should be a good templar or do what he can (aka learn good spells) to become a good templar. And if it is grand pa, that's the same AND he would expect his son (dad) to do the same

now of course a specific character may be very peaceful, but grand pa + dad ? a lot of people may be jealous of simple famers with so much land.

my personal "rule" is : if the character is a farmer, then he has one hide. If the character has 4 hides, he is warrior or noble or priest.

Note that I don't forget the women, but for a Yelmalio family I focus on the man. Of course an explanation would be that one of the women is a Earh priestess, but then why marry with a ... banal husband ? when you are blessed by the goddess you need a protector, not a plowman

am I in my too dark glorantha or does it make sense ? don't know ^^

On 9/26/2023 at 9:31 AM, Scotty said:

 I skipped C by accident.

Bouhhhhhhhh !!!

thanks a lot for all this (not very funny) job, David

10 minutes ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

In my opinion it is too much trouble -  and takes too much time -  to re-calculate the skill category modifiers for temporary and situational things like this.

So I would only apply it to rolls against the raw charisma  score.

for you only, because I like you 😛

communication skill

CHA  < 13 then -10%

CHA = 13 or 14 then -15%

CHA = 15 or 16 then -10%

CHA = 17-18 then -15%

CHA = 19-20 then -10%

or another simple option => -10%

Hello

For me, it is only for any communication activities ( skills and CHA roll if needed) used with other species

there are few in this "rule" that could be challenged but here my reason:

art:  picture, sculpture... some may say that once the art piece done, nothing says who (what ?) is the author. But there is a big cultural difference, so for me, I apply the penalty (CHA-10) but, if in the background, something says that the character has some good reason to live in the cultural other specie AND had studied with an artist, well it could be canceled (or ajusted)

- for example a baboon raised since her birth by a painter should have no penalty to paint anything

speak other language (aka language of the other specie): there is accent, intonation, that can be corrected (if > 75% I would say, don't try to speak with me in english, I probably have the same accent that your baboon speaking lunar 😛 ). But... even if the character has no more accent... she has still the same look. So facing other specie-men, they may have some a priori (depending on the habit to deal with the character specie, the character herself, and of course racism counts too).

- example 1 : a baboon trying to organize some farmers to defend their village may use speak language to be well understood. But the farmers never saw baboon before so they may consider that "of course we will not understand" so penalty

- a merchant who deals every week with baboons without any preconception will "accept" the language skill of our baboon without any % (once the 75% reached)

- a merchant who deals every week with baboons but is a racist will notice that our baboon speak very well his language... for a beast. so a penalty may apply

2 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Only if you assume all women get pregnant every year throughout their adult life. 🙂 This does not seem like any Glorantha I know.

you are right, it was not what I thought, but clearly I made a stat mistake then 😛

I have to agree with you then 😉 ... about Ernalda's lands; few are probably enough

but there is then no explanation why we don't see any difference between Prax and Esrolia/Sartar. (that's the other point @Rodney Dangerduck your figure seems to me very important, enough to see a difference between communities with this spell and community without it)

Not convinced by "there should be other magic there" because in that case, why the Ernalda spell is proposed and not others.

of course the last option is mgf and that's all 😛

1 hour ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

2- Strict Malkionism, but Wizards create childbirth sorcery. (Not in RQiG rules example spells, but we have been told what is in the rulebook is a truncated version of sorcery for Lhankor Mhy.)

I agree, west was an example about those I m sure (or not), there is less Ernalda, but poor example for your reason. I found prax then 😛

2 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

In Orlanthi society, I would imagine the percentage corresponds roughly with how many are initiated to Ernalda, which is probably something like 70% among women of fertile age? Which in turns correspond to about the percentage of Free or higher social class. And there's been a move away from having "Wizard magic only" in the West, towards all kinds of lesser cults among the people.

you know how low my knowledge is compared for other, I use the west as the "weirdos" compared with Esrolia/Sartar. I don't see clearly how Peloria works among the non lunar cults. But let's talk about praxian for example:

Eiritha has not the spell and not any spell helping it. It means a very large % of praxian women have not access fot themselve to this spell. But we have nothing (well, what I know) about any difference between sartarite and praxian distribution. Children and women be less in Prax than in Sartar.

2 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

If somehow Bless Pregnancy isn't available to the regular initiate (why?)

why not 😛 I m just looking for a reason explaining why I don't see any difference (again there may be a difference I don't know)  between people with Ernalda "support" and those without/with less when this spell should demonstrate a true difference if everyone could gain its benefit.

2 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

then things change, but in that case, it will instead create a demand for the spell from those who have it. I mean, one measly point of Rune Magic for two thirds of a year to secure the health of the mother and the child and avoid pains and complications, that seems like a fantastic deal.

I agree, and I would add "for a fantastic cost" (not POW but cow, mmm am I good in english  poetry ? 🙂 )

2 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

If somehow only a few percent of the population has access to it, then it should still be very common to see it cast.

not sure of that... let's say that 1% of women can cast it. Let's say that they can cast it 3 times a year (so a lot of pow dedicated to it) It just means 3% of mothers of the year can gain it. So common as anyone knows Ernalda, sometimes, bless the mothers, but not common as anyone can obtain it. It seems to me that only those with enough network (aka noble or bloodine leaders) may obtain it from the temple. After all, even in this " fair culture compared to yelmic tyranny", you find slaves and this adage (don't remember exactly) about hero with blood of heroes (so hero with blood of family able to pay bless pregnancy ^^)

something like "look how our chief's baby is blessed by the gods, we are so lucky to have our chief, our poor people  the gods don't take care so much."

but I may be totally wrong.

Just now, Akhôrahil said:

I would imagine that a majority is blessed with at least 1 point, though - this doesn't produce any supermen, but it seems like a no-brainer to drop one POW into 1 Rune Point + Bless Pregnancy the first time if no-one else is doing it for you and to cast at least one point's worth of Bless Pregnancy, even if it does lock up that Rune Point for two-thirds of a year. 

however, what about people (community) who don't worship any deity providing this spells ? Is there any statistic difference ? Are malkioni weaker than ernaldan countries ?

Or is Ernalda worshipped every where, with the same ratio ?

it is "no brain" if you consider it from an irl player perspective. But if you consider it as an opportunity offered by Ernalda and only chosen women can learn it (aka that is not pc who decide what is learnt but only p-layers for their play/pleasure) there is no question of brain then 🙂

18 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

If not, it means that a woman of child bearing age cannot rely on their local Ernaldan Priestess for the spell.  Therefore, most all Ernaldan NPCs will have sacrificed 1 extra POW to get up to at least 2 rune points, so as to have access to this spell for themselves, or for their close friends or family.

I think this option very fine by the way. And it explains why all pregnancies are not blessed, but only "happy few"

14 minutes ago, StephenMcG said:

Hmm, I have never been in favour of spirits of reprisal etc unless the disrespect was egregious.  To me it never leads to MGF.  Especially not because someone who was an initiate in two (or more) is accepted as a Priest in one of those.

I do think adding to reputation (1D3) "this bloke ditched us for Zola Fel" works for me. 

never say never 😛

it depends on how people play, and if there is direspect. Typically in a desperate game, when pcs have to make decision and any decision will be a betrayal of a loyalty/devotion/etc... spirit of reprisal (or mundane reprisal) may be an event of the tragedy.

In all cases, if the pc was initiated of Zola Fel with the agreement of Foundchild cult, a normal outcome (even if it is rare of course) is that pc may become priest of Zola Fel. In your case, if everything is done in accordance with the rules (not irl rqg rules but glorantha cults rules) no hunter can say "hey wait ! you are betraying us by accepting priesthood"... well... no hunter with enough  wisdom and without malicious intents