Squaredeal Sten

And now that the Red Book of Magic is published (December 2020), Crel is proven correct: Sanctify is Duration (special) and " When the ceremonies cease, the spell effects expire. " So it's good for a ceremony of any length. But unless your ceremony is continuous it will expire some time. So it won't create a Temple. We need that wyter.

It strikes me that a letter on parchment would be a two step process: In step 1 the scribe takes dictation by writing with a stylus on a board covered with wax. (This is documented for the Romans, it was their equivalent of a notebook, there are even archaeological finds - but there is no reason to think this particular technology is not pre-Roman.) Any drafting and editing is done in this step. Erasures are done by smoothing the wax, cheap and easy. Alternatively this can be done on wet clay, but that makes your notebook less portable. In step 2 the scribe puts ink on the parc

I haven't paged through its 110 pages trying to compare every paragraph with the Guide to Glorantha. And I don't have the GTG memorized. Anyway this predates GTG, copyright 2007 vs. 2016. It's certainly got more material than the page and a fraction on Aldryami in Glorantha Sourcebook, and I haven't even verified that the mythology section matches the Sourcebook in every detail. My memory for pre-Time Gloranthan gods is pretty leaky. Anyway- A LOT of discussion and extrapolation of the psychology of a mobile, intelligent plant. Elf lifesense as a mental link to the forest

Thanks, Runeblogger. It took me a few months but this week I finally got a reasonably priced copy of that book. It is good stuff on Aldryami motivations and behavior, though not canon. Now if only Chaosium would find an author to expand on it with ready to play scenarios to bring its observations to life, as Trollpack does for trolls.

Now (December 2020) that the Red Book of Magic is published, the duration of Sanctify has been clarified: It lasts long enough for the ceremony or other magical business at hand. Then it ends.

For some time I have wondered why that mask line doesn't include common cults like Issaries; and has "air runes" but not a mask with all of Orlanth's runes; but does have an unlikely combination like Xiola Umbar. I suppose it's a matter of an artist taking an interest.

Yes, interesting. So the shield skill is a later thought, after an initial intent to just make shield parry % the same as weapon parry %. Perhaps a result of later playtesting after the initial design notes? Personally i live well with the shield parry rules as they are. It doesn't rub me the wrong way. And when i learned to fence it was foil fencing, no shield, so it's "obvious" to me that shield parry skill is NOT always linked to weapon parry skill.

Congratulations to Jaye on the new job. Did Chaosium not have a dedicated art director before?

I don't understand the assumption that the elemental will turn on you. I was under the impression that it would follow its own preferences,"acts in accordance with its nature" but those might be to wander off rather than to fight. The Bestiary p.177 says "fire elementals burn flammable materials within reach, earth elementals sink into the soil, darkness elementals flee light, and air elementals breeze around." also p.176 inset, "An elemental will not move unless told to do so. However, an elemental automatically attacks anything caught within or on top of it." Therefore it seems to me th

Real World, for what it's worth - I get the impression that a scale mail hauberk was a one- size -fits- most item. Probably +/- more than two SIZ points. It's essentially a metal reinforced overcoat. Think large - average- or small. Helmets would be worn with a leather or cloth cap or liner, to cushion the head when someone actually hits the helmet. Adjust the thickness of your liner and you have re-sized the helmet. Helmets were actually mass produced at least once in historical but still ancient times (Roman empire, production in Gaul) and I doubt they had exact sizes like mo

It might be in order to do a Divination first, asking whether the uncle is alive or dead. How to do that would depend on what cult the uncle is in, since Divination can only tell you what is known to your god. I would assume that a god would know whether one of his own cultists was alive. Perhaps this would be the shaman's professional advice. Kind of a "You need to consult a specialist" answer. If the uncle is dead then the shaman could search for the uncle's spirit to question it, if someone wanted to know when, where, or how the uncle died. If alive of course that would be a fruit

So then, to partly answer the original question, the minimum hides to support a shrine are zero, because it doesn't need to have full time staff. Not even necessarily a god-talker, though that appears to be the norm ("Usually staffed only by a god-talker"). This does indicate a couple of questions that come up in my mind, see below: God-talker appears to be a non-salaried ? but may have a stipend in kind? volunteer position, "although they are provided with food and board by the temple, they typically must maintain another occupation" (RQG p.278). A God-talker position is also ev

Spell training time is defined in RQG: For spirit magic, page 277: "This occupies a week of ritual and training during which nothing else may be done..." Gaining rune magic would technically appear to happen when POW is sacrificed for it (p.314) but p.313 says "the sacrifice requires a full week of prayer and meditation in the temple. at the end of the which the adventurer sacrifices 1 or more POW points and gains an equal number of rune points".. so that's a week also.

Time to take away the punch bowl on this party! The book rule on fires appears reasonable. It will probably disappoint players who think they've found a great 20th century RW weapon to use in the Bronze Age. But if you want to rain on that particular parade, you might point out some nasty old RW reality: - A pint of olive oil or even of whiskey has a lot less energy in it (and a lot more water in it) than a pint of gasoline. Yes you might start a house fire with it, no you will not kill anyone in a melee round or two. It's like unattended candles or smoking in bed, not instant

Yes. For example Yelmalio in accord with Cults of Prax. " Thus he insists that Initiates of the Adventuring Path accept a gift and take on a geas, as in the manner of Humakt. Only one gift and the concomitant number of geases are given at the Initiate level. " I expect this will persist in the to-be-produced RQG cults book, since it's pretty vital to any existing Yelmalio character.