Dragon

Phil, Good question. I was not precise. My expectation is that the Chalana Arroy walks into the bound area and the disease spirit attacks. I did mention it is to protect the community. Because disease spirits will attack anyone travelling through. Either because the Binder told them via Command or Control, or because it is in their nature to spread disease. And lo, a new intended victim has entered the area, in the awareness of the disease spirit. And it initiates spirit combat. The initiate generally has little access to Discorporate, and thus cannot 'attack' the disease spirit. Hence the disease spirit attacks, in almost every case. Which is why the presence of the disease spirit is a threat to the community. Not everyone has >75 Spirit Combat skill and thus many villagers, their livestock and pets, even wild animals could be attacked by the disease spirit and get seriously hurt. You could be correct about the Humakti with Truesword not gaining the 1d3 POW. The wording is a little ambiguous. As GM, I always figured it was the one that drove the disease spirit to zero magic points, however that happened. The rule could mean only the intended victim (i.e embodied spirit) attacked by the disease spirit, if and only if said victim inflicts every magic point via Spirit Combat results. But it doesn't say that. Imagine, a PC gets attacked by a disease spirit. He is evenly matched, and a party member helps out. In which ways below would the victim not count as having defeated the spirit and driven it off (thus not gain the immunity and 1d3 POW): Friend casts Spirit Screen to help the victim survive Friend casts Disruption inflicting 1d3 magic points on the disease spirit, but not the final magic points Friend hits spirit with a Truesword, inflicting some 'damage', but not the final magic points Friend inspires the victim to increase their Spirit Combat skill Friend casts Glamour on the victim to increase Spirit Combat skill and possibly the Spirit Combat damage (victim was at 15 POW and 14 CHA and Glamour changes their 1d6+1 to 1d6+3). I always figured rather than try to split hairs about each scenario, I would make a simple ruling. Inflict the last magic points to drive it to zero, reap the rewards. Your GM can declare only the intended victim can reap rewards and only if they do the last magic points of damage. Your GM can declare all of the above mean the victim had 'help' and thus gains none of the rewards. That is their prerogative. If they want to define only the ones that directly cause magic point damage as negating the rewards, they can do that. If the disease spirit succeeds enough to get Serious disease on the victim and moves to another victim, does that new victim only need to inflict as many magic points as the spirit had when it engaged them, or the entire POW worth of magic points? If the victim is a Vinga who decides to cast Lightning 4 on the disease spirit as the final act, does that count as "manages to defeat the spirit and drives it off or destroys it"? You are very correct that RAW don't say. The GM should just be consistent.

In old rules, Summon Spirit of Law stated that if the Law Spirit defeated the chaotic entity, it was destroyed or annihilated. The RBoM does not state the same in this version. An interesting scenario could occur where a disease spirit is bound to an area. A Chalana Arroy initiate with decent POW and high Spirit Combat skill defeats it, and gains 1d3 POW, which reduces the POW of the spirit by the same amount. Now let's say the initiate's player decides to return every day and finds the disease spirit recovered in magic points. (Not to max the initiate's POW but to vanquish the spirit from threatening the community.) The initiate can hopefully defeat it again and again, driving it ever lower in POW. Once the spirit reaches zero POW, it is destroyed. Victory. One interesting side note to how disease spirits work. A victim who gets some bad rolls and is infected but eventually defeats that same disease spirit becomes immune to all the diseases that spirit had. Thus, they can cure themselves. Of course, if the victim gets help and that helper defeats the spirit, the original victim needs some kind of cure (spell, shaman, CON roll, etc). Which means a knowledgeable Disease Master would be smart to command disease spirits to infect up to Serious (i.e. twice) and then move to another victim. Serious is tough enough, and reduces the opportunity the victim can defeat the spirit completely. Of course, if someone else in the party helps; such as a Humakti who casts Truesword; and whacks the spirit to zero magic points, the helper gains the immunity and POW. Leaving the victim having to continue with the effects of those diseases.

Book 2, page 16, second column. "Others consider Sartarites to be quarrelsome, reckless, and fiercely independent. Most are devoted to Orlanth and Ernalda and hate the Lunar Empire with a burning passion." The order of these two sentences would make more sense swapped. In the current order, the 'Most' implies most of the 'Others' are devoted to Orlanth and Ernalda and hate the Lunar Empire with a burning passion. But I expect the 'Most' should apply to Sartarites.

Book 2, page 12, second column. "An adventurer’s kinfolk support them against enemies, pay their ransom them if they are captured, and avenge them when injured." There is an extraneous 'them' in the middle of the sentence. Or you could say "..., ransom them if they are captured,..."

Book 3 section 72: "This costs an additional Rune point ad requires its own roll." The 'ad' should be 'and'. I also thought Extension was stacked with the original spell (Shield in this case), and thus was one roll to cast. Like it would be to cast 2 points of Shield. Does it actually require its own roll? Book 3 section 170: There appears to be a single quote in front of 'Your blade is embedded in his side'.

Book 4, Page 58, Trollkin Quarters, fifth bullet: "...15 L with the missing the Issaries figure'. Remove the second 'the'. Book 4, Page 67, last sentence in first column: "...and the ay to the rock lisard nest (following). 'ay' should be 'way', and lizard is misspelled.

Book 4, page 28: Last paragraph in Phase One: Regarding townsfolk, "Roll 1D6 for their efforts, but they are unable to the fire out this phase", is missing 'put' or similar word between 'to' and 'the'. The bullets seem disproportionate. Phase One is 'several minutes long' (p 25). A round is 12 seconds, so 5/minute and several minutes implies at least 3 meaning Phase One is roughly at least 15 rounds long. The first bullet about Task Talk or Intimidate means that one bystander helps out, but it takes the entire Phase One (15 rounds) to get that bystander to reduce the fire by 1 hit point. Can a physically involved adventurer also Intimidate bystanders to help? Summoned elementals, the Rain spell, and Extinguish (if not playing with the pregens) really help in exchange for magic points or rune points. However the fourth bullet seems to be inconsistent. Each round an adventurer gets physically involved will reduce the fire by 1 hit point. This seems to contradict the paragraph following all bullets: 'Any adventurer directly taking part in the firefighting should make a roll of their POWx5. Success reduces the fire by 1 hit point.' Not one 'each round'. And if the fourth bullet were accurate, two adventurers taking part for the approximately 15 rounds would easily extinguish the fire by the end of Phase One. Even if they failed a few POWx5 rolls of the 15. And thus Phase Two would be very different than the narrative. So I suspect bullet four is supposed to be one Fire hit point in the entire phase if the POW roll is successful per adventurer physically involved. But that is not what is says. Not an actual error, but I would also suggest the Communication skills bullet be '1 hit point for each level of success but takes one full phase.' Meaning that if an adventurer rolled a special Fast Talk success two bystanders would help in Phase One. Especially if the Fast Talker cannot also physically be involved. These adventurers can't be so good or lucky at Fast Talk and Intimidate that they all roll a critical success and get 3 bystanders.

Book 4, page 16: in the "What's Going On?" box second paragraph: "Now they Chaos monsters are squatting..." should be "Now these Chaos monsters are squatting..."

Ionara's folio: 'Your high Truth Rune means you despise lies and deception. You are a straight shooter and would rather say nothing than say something deceptive.' The statement makes great sense for Dazarim (who also has the statement as one bullet), and not for Ionara (who has the second sentence in the last bullet and the first sentence in the end of the previous bullet). Ionara is equal in Truth and Illusion with both at 50. I suspect this statement was copied from how to play Dazarim.

Book 4, page 73: 'Mutating rapidly, the newtling’s body grow grossly larger, its claws and teeth becoming those of a predator, and its hide roughened and toughened.' I believe the tense is inconsistent: grow and becoming are active, roughened and toughened are past tense or past participle. Past tense for grow would be grew. Past participle for grow would be grown. Past tense for becoming is became. In present tense, the verbs should end in 's' as the noun is singular. Hence, if the mutation is now complete: "Mutating rapidly, the newtling's body grew grossly larger, its claws and teeth became those of a predator, and its hide roughened and toughened.' If the mutation is not complete: "Mutating rapidly, the newtling's body grows grossly larger, its claws and teeth becomes those of a predator, and its hide roughens and toughens.' Not an easy sentence to spot the grammar.

Ah, that could be. I knew it wasn't official Glorantha. Decent cult though.

When I first learned RQ, way back in college, the campaign included at various times: duck, mostali, trolls, minotaurs, baboon, centaur. My first character was a dark troll and died in Snake Pipe Hollow, as did the other two trolls in a battle that everyone else survived. That included my 'secondary' character who was a human Erlin the Harper cultist. Erlin was a cult from something other than Chaosium. The Harper became perhaps the most powerful character in that campaign. The GM also loved mostali, and at one point there were four in the group. Two were LMs. The duck died pretty early on. The centaur came in and out of the campaign because he couldn't go underground. The entire time I was in college, one minotaur survived. At one point, the player who had one of the Lhankors also brought in a bigger stronger minotaur. So Mumar, the SIZ 21 and long lived minotaur, had a 2d6 damage bonus. The new minotaur was STR 30 and SIZ 27, so just hit the 3d6 bonus. Both were Storm Bulls, as expected. Ten characters including those two fought a bundle of Lunar soldiers (16+ iirc) in one big battle. Unfortunately both minotaurs went berserk in the battle. Mumar from getting a slash. The other one from being hit for a minor wound. As the last of the Lunars were being dealt with, everyone else either hid or tried to convince them to stop. Even that person hid eventually. Amazingly, we all hid successfully, and the minotaurs failed their Scan rolls while bashing the unconscious Lunars into actual death. Then they went at each other. Not a pretty sight. Mumar won due to superior skill, very quickly. Then he turned his rage against a Lhankor Mhy who would have died quickly. So my Babeestor Gor Axe Sister interposed and broke his weapons until he stopped berserking. In my campaigns, I have allowed a few trolls. One of them was even an Arkati sorceror. So that was pretty unique. I also had in various campaigns; a baboon shaman, a wind child, two elves, and a pixie. The pixie, Charlatan, was an Eurmali, so was a load of fun. I will admit that character was far too good at intelligence gathering, if she could stay on task. The wind child, Stormy, was Orlanth Adventurous (not Thunderous). One party actually had a single brown elf and a single troll in a party of humans. That elf was an odd one because she worshipped Lodril. She was a terror in combat with mastery of spear (previous xp and stat bonuses, though her stats were not quite as good as the one mentioned earlier in this thread) and used either Fireblade or Firespear in nearly every battle. But she was a glass cannon if anyone could survive a round against her. The troll was Xiola Umbar who patched her up on the remarkably rare times she had maimed limbs. You would think that would happen every major battle, but it did not due to her excellent parry skill. Note: The troll was considerably more skilled in First Aid (80+) than troll maul (50+), but when he hit he killed things or broke shields. That campaign also had a Vinga and a Babeestor Gor who had considerably more armor, so they just kept the elf between them to avoid her being overwhelmed with too many opponents. In my groups we also had two human Humakti that became Swords. One was huge and eventually got a few uses of Royal Jelly and trained strength to match. He used great sword and 2d6 damage bonus without magic. The other became Sword and took all geases to never wear armor on any location, with the gifts to match so he did double damage after armor on every location (RQ3 version) - and used protection and/or Shield often. Again, great sword. Those two were true death dealers. Neither ever used Berserk as they wanted to parry. So in all, I would say using non-humans doesn't make any particular character too powerful, and it brings different strengths to the party.

1) YGMV, but IMO Malia is a death goddess. She doesn't return the dead to life. She wants them where they are. She does however, view a successful DI as a way to spread disease, in chaotic ways. Never the same. So consider a few examples: Revor exploded sending extra disease fragments that every PC needs to roll to resist (CONx3 as it is extra nasty), Revor attacks the one who dealt the death blow in spirit combat as an intelligent Spirit of Disease (since he had POW as well as CHA, it will be nastier than the normal Spirit of Disease) with his POWx5 skill in Spirit Combat, Revor casts his remaining Rune Points as Cause Disease and maybe a couple for the DI. Only a Disease Master should be able to invoke a Cause Plague on a successful DI. That thing is nasty! 2) Keep it a scimitar or kopis. The party can try to trade it to someone who has a magic item they looted which has a Limitation that allows a member of the party to use it, but not the trader. That may take the rest of the season, there are not magic shops like in computer RPGs! (ignoring certain Issaries giants). 3) This is based on how I would treat #4. Yes, they can loot the broos. Anyone with Treat Disease skill (while Chalana Arroy is about the only teacher they are likely to find, everyone can learn it) can 'cleanse' the items. If the Treat Disease skill fails, the PC making the attempt is exposed. If the Treat Disease skill fumbles, everyone in the vicinity is exposed. So don't let someone with 15 skill try it. Explain to new players that looting the broo will likely expose them to disease, unless you have someone very skilled Treat Disease, and that can do some awful things to you. 4) You are exposed to disease in the following ways: a) You are injured by a broo's weapon or special ability. b) You injured a broo and keep your weapon (unless cleansed). Don't recover your arrows/bolts c) You loot a broo and failed your Treat Disease, which exposed you to the disease on that broo. d) Something else that seems like it should expose you. Each occurrence of the above forces counts as an exposure. So for the love of Chalana Arroy, don't hit broo with multiple weapons. Note: if you wounded multiple broo with the same weapon and keep it, roll only once for each different disease the various broo had. Note: I do not include being attacked by a Spirit of Disease - there are well defined ways you get diseases from them and no need to add. I do not count them exposed due to parries or hits stopped by armor. They will usually have better Spirit Combat skills than the PCs and will infect. Another note: If a weapon only hit a broo while Fireblade or Firespear was active, the weapon does not need to be cleansed. In my game, anyone with those spells used them to fight broo specifically for that reason. I figured the Sky was mythically powerful against disease (see Yelm's Fight Disease spell) and the weapon had been 'replaced' so the actual weapon doesn't quite hit the broo. Every Malia-worshipping initiate broo has at least one disease. It was a requirement for initiation back in RQ2 and likely will still be in Gods & Goddesses of Glorantha. Thed-worshipping broo may have one. Each broo may be different (GMs should have that ready). When exposed you need to roll a CON roll to resist (or get the first level of disease and have to roll again to see if it progresses). Normal exposure to disease would be CONx5. But broo are worse and thus start at CONx4 to resist. Disease Masters should likely be CONx3. The Chaotic Feature of 87-88 should make it harder to resist an exposure. Very rarely the GM could say one is even nastier. Again, YGMV, but I think that works well to balance things.

If you want the party to be able to use it after they defeat the boss, as you indicated may happen, I would suggest just adding the ability to auto-roll location as '20' on any critical or special. Keep it with special or critical damage as indicated by the Skill roll. And the victim can parry or dodge as normal. This isn't D&D, where a hit automatically does damage. It is RQG where parries and armor reduce damage. Don't confuse the world systems. Once the victim parries and stops all or most of the blow, the victim will still be scared of the idea that special or critical damage unnaturally goes right at the head. As GM, I would definitely let them know. Just like they would know that a foe is waiting for SR 12 and aiming for the head. Considering that the closest equivalent in RAW, is delaying until SR 12 at half Skill; this is one powerful sword when the magic is invoked. i.e. chance of special or critical damage will be twice what it would be if the wielder delayed. If you go with making the location '20' rather than Special damage, the wielder may actually prefer getting special damage on another location. Not always, as it depends on base weapon damage and the foe's armor. A slash that takes off an arm or leg, or good body hit is going to put the victim out of the fight anyway (if it gets significant damage past the parry). On the other hand, if the wielder is facing a scorpion man, where slicing off the first couple legs barely does any GHP damage, by all means the wielder will take the '20' rather than Slash damage.

1- Have you reviewed Revenant on page 123 of Bestiary? That seems the likely fit. No mummies per se in RQG. Zorak Zoran in previous editions was somewhat famous for empowering mummies from their Death Lords and now 'The Zorak Zoran cult is notorious for “preserving” Death Lords as revenants.' Mummies usually evoke wrapping in burial clothes, where revenants can be preserved in other ways. 2- Perhaps use a revenant and grant it some of the Spirit Powers on page 165-167 or maybe sorcery spells. Note some Spirit Powers will not make sense as it will not have POW and is embodied. 3- See #2 above.

Indeed, 'removes the consequences' can be interpreted as either the baby was removed from the world or removed from the womb - let's say magically transported outside the victim's body. At that point, established that it is Chaotic because Cure Chaos Wound would not have worked otherwise, the Chalana Arroy is under no requirement to protect a Chaotic living thing. A bystander could stomp on it, or simply let it starve. I doubt the Chalana Arroy should do the former. I feel the interpretation should be left to the GM who understands the sensitivity of their players.

I respectfully disagree with your wording given the context to which you responded: broo babies. It is specifically one thing 'Chalana Arroy is about'. They have access to the one Rune Magic that takes care of broo babies. Chalana Arroy also gives that to Storm Bull, but it is primarily Chalana Arroy that has access to Cure Chaos Wound. It specifically states: "The spell also completely cures the victim of broo impregnation and removes its consequences." There is no statement in the skill First Aid about abortion. First Aid isn't intrusive surgery. Hence, it is invariably the healer's job to abort broo babies. Any culture without powerful Storm Bulls around must rely on Chalana Arroys to save the needless suffering of parasitoid victims. At least until they run out of Rune Points. That is just the way it is in Glorantha. Cure Chaos Wound really is a fantastic spell. Most diseases are likely to be 'from Chaos', and it cures those at half the cost of Cure All Disease. Note: 'Powerful' Storm Bulls because most Storm Bulls won't learn Cure Chaos Wounds until they get the more obvious fighting spells. Every CA healer should have it in their initial 3 RP, Storm Bulls may pick it up at 6 or 7 RP.

I agree with most of the above except #3, at least in general. In prior releases CAs were vegetarians. Especially because you can eat parts of many plants without killing the plant. In some cases without even hurting it at all. e.g. seeds. So, unless you were completely unable to use vegetation as your meal, e.g. a desert, a CA shouldn't hunt either. While RQ:G is not literally stating vegetarians, I expect it is part of 'needlessly cause pain to any living thing.' (Page 290 of RiG). I recall one adventure on a certain 'boat' where I was playing a Chalana Arroy initiate. To stop a Lunar soldier from finishing off a fallen but alive defender, my character Gavving slept the Lunar. While Gavving was healing someone near the end of the battle, our friendly minotaur Storm Bull grabbed the still sleeping Lunar and tossed him overboard. He said "He wanted to be with friends." Gavving stammered "But he could have drowned." Gavving was torn, but eventually couldn't fault the minotaur too much. Well done by the minotaur's player to traverse the minefield of having a Lunar under the 'protection' of the Chalana Arroy initiate, and his Hate (Lunar) passion. Well, this was RQ2 and he didn't literally have a Hate (Lunar) passion on his sheet. But it would have been if the mechanic had been in the rules. How do other feel about Gavving eventually forgiving the not terribly bright minotaur?

...you must be illuminated?

Sorry Bill. I do not mean the Red Book of Magic itself. There is a new download associated with it: https://www.chaosium.com/content/FreePDFs/RuneQuest/CHA4034 - Red Book of Magic/RuneQuest - Rune Spell Reference.pdf It is the Rune Spell Reference. The Rune Spell Reference is a list of each Rune and which Rune spells exist for that Rune. In that download, the list of Truth spells lists Arrow Trance. The list of Plant spells does not list Arrow Trance. So that reference does not correctly match the Runes listed in the original Red Book of Magic. Which you posted. Handy reference. I do use Adobe Reader. Here are the screenshots: I was informed of it in an email with subject: Ab Chaos #159 - Call of Cthulhu – new free character sheets to mark the game's 40th anniversary.

I see that the Rune Spell Reference is out. I noted that Arrow Trance is mistakenly under Truth Rune and not Plant Rune. It is correctly under Sky Rune.

I doubt it, as the target gets to consider. I expect they would try to throw missile or thrown weapons at you. You are within 50 meters to cast it, so within most missile/thrown ranges. Besides, the "This spell pulls an opponent’s attention to the caster as a more opportune target for attack." in the description is important. So presumably, the guy with the gate key is already fighting someone, either on the wall or with missile weapons, for you to cast it. A Chalana Arroy High Healer affected by the spell may view the caster as 'more opportune' to attack. That doesn't mean she will break cult vows to physically attack the caster. But this thread being what it is, go for it! I remember reading something called a Lead Cross in Plunder back in the day. **no spoiler**. A PC on a similar but less severe path could frustrate High Healers simply by casting Distraction on them. An interesting question is whether Distraction would work to distract a guard not 'attacking their current target', but just on guard duty. For example, could you cast it on a guard to make him want to interrogate the caster while the caster's friend unlocks the gate and slips in. That would be pretty darn good for a 1 point Spirit spell.

I definitely see the issue with extending this rule to the NPCs. And all rules really should extend to the NPCs. If initiates can DI so successfully, then how does anyone actually die in a major battle? Three or four deaths required before, to pick a character name, Vasana actually dies while defending the temple? The party comes up with brilliant tactical plans and defeats a gaggle of broo, and one third of the broo are whisked off by Thed to fight another day? Maybe you can suggest Thed doesn't like those weakling broo getting to live again, but then my example would simply change to defeating a file of Silver Shields or Granite Phalanx. In my game, a certain Rune Lord of Yanafal Tarnils who murdered the husband of one player character was confronted after a year of effort (6 years after the murder, but 1 year after the PC learned who had committed the murder). After hours of preparation by the PCs and a few rounds of combat, the Lunars had lost a couple initiates and a rune priest of Seven Mothers was unconscious (but alive). The characters were sorely disappointed when Yanafal Tarnils intervened at the Rune Lord's request to whisk the living away to the nearest temple. But the party could continue on to the prize both parties were trying to recover. IMHO such encounters should not be commonplace. With too much chance of DI, they would be.

A decent idea, easy to remember. And a roll of 38 would succeed and leave a POW of 0 just like a 19. Would a roll of 39 be a success with POW reduced to 18, or a success with POW still reduced to 0?

I did receive another email with the voucher and it worked. My leatherette version is on the way.