Squaredeal Sten

Or you can have the adventurers leave Dauke Rous' service and go north up the river to Sun County.

Seems to me that the Lunars killing Orlanth and Ernakda. however temporary it may be, is proof that a god CAN be killed in Time and not just in the Godtime. But it turns out to be more important that gods are creatures of myth as well as of Runes, and since myth is malleable in Time they can be un-killed too. The Compromise indicates a lot of inertia related to the gods IN TIME, so if they continue to do what they have always done, maybe that means living gods continue to live and dead gods continue to be dead. Orlanth's and Ernalda's revival may be the Compromise snapping back like a stretched rubber band. For game purposes that killing and return of Orlanth and Ernalda sets a very high estimated boundary for what you can do through heroquesting, and that may be most of what we need to know as players. The question of what gods are composed of is intriguing but not necessary for play, IMHO. As for whether, for example, you can heroquest to revive Genert, who is a casualty of the God's War as I understand: It strikes me that you probably cannot change the godtime in a major way unless you want to go the way of the God Learners. But if the Seven Mothers could assemble Sedenya through a heroquest and ceremony and raping and sacrificing a virgin ( a Chaotic act) , then why not Genert? Didn't it work with Sedenya? The answer seems to me to be that they synthesized a new goddess inside Time from fragments. and that though Sedenya may identify with one or more dead gods, she is not the same as that dead God. She is more a Frankenstein's monster, wth that touch of Chaos. So you could heroquest to reassemble Genert but it won't be te same Genert and it's a toss up whether Prax would really bloom again. Or when it blooms will it look more like Dorastor?

I have been curious about Heroquest/ Questworld, but when I hit registration your session was already filled up. so getting into it was not a choice for me. And there was only that one QW session. But all I read into it is that (1) QW is in pre publication limbo, so people didnt run more. Which is too bad because a number of people seem to have liked HQ. Perhaps Chaosium will publish QW before next con, so it doesn't slide into oblivion. (2) Chaosiumcon is not immune from a tendency to have eyes bigger than stomach at registration time. And although Tabletop.events has a mechanic for people to drop out and make their seats available, a lot of people don't actually do that. Perhaps some incentive (positive or negative) to play that game is appropriate. We might usefully discuss how to do that.

OK, I believe it but I have never seen a reference for it, nor up to now any information about the angle between a line through the red moon's poles and the plane defined by the surface of Glorantha. I would really like to see a canon explanation of Gloranthsn astronomy in general. This is not the first time I have said that. .

That particular section is just boosts to spirit magic. Except that the Combine skill is not clearly limited to spirit magic. As far as Demoralize goes, the "amplify effects" table on p.124 days each point of amplify decreases the victim's attack by 5%. So where the ordinary Demoralize would reduce the 90% skill to 45%, in the example it is now reduced to 35%. Of course with more MPS you could reduce a less skilled target's attack % to zero, e.g.start at 50%, normally reduce to 25%, and 5 more MPs gives you 0% skill. The Irripi Ontor section, is where Lunar sorcery shows up. Pages 82-85. So far I am underwhelmed, but I am no sorcery expert, therefore if someone else can explain the coolness of it please correct me. - Commune with Planet and Discern Constellation give a temporaty boost to one or several rune affinities. This does iook as if it just boosts % to cast at a fairly high cost. Moonfire is a nice area effect sorcery but will need a lot of MPs to take out armored troops. The Red Moon section (pages 19-24) does have an interesting thing: The phase of the moon is different depending on where you stand: In Dragon pass, Wildday is the full moon day. But in First Blessed Windsday is the Full Moon day. That will trip players up if they rely on the generic calendar.

At least in the Red Goddess section that I quoted, it's just to affect spirit magic. But the Irripi Ontor section has sorcery, and I haven't yet studied that enough to say. and I never was a sorcery expert based on the RQG book. However the phases of the moon will affect MP costs of the sorcery spells, that is clear. So during the full moon Lunar sorcery is going to be cheap.

Reading The Lunar Way, one of the most important things I see is in the Red goddess chapter, pages 123-125, "Lunar magic". This is going to be very useful to GMs running Lunar related adventures. Ler me just whet your intrerest here: A. Upon initiation in the cult of the Red Goddess, the initiate gains starting % in each of the Lunar magic skills, essentially sorcery skills that relate to spirit magic. and they may train for more %. Free INT is required just as in the sorcery rules, and each point of Free INT enables the use of a point of one of those skills. B. Those skills are Amplify, combine, distance, prolong. As i read p.124, three of the four affect sprit magic only, but they enable increases in effect, duration, and range. There is a list of specific amplify effects for specific spirit spells on p.124. As a first example, with 2 points of Amplify, the Speedart spell could be changed from its usual spirit magic effects ( adding 15% to hit and +3 damage), to +25% to hit and +5 damage . It would cost a total of 3MPs, but it would pretty reliably break through plate armor and hit like a bullet With a composite bow and a damage roll of 8, you do 1D8+6 or a max of 14 without rolling a special. As a second example, with 2 points of amplify plus 2 points of distance, for six MPs you can cast a Demoralize spell that will decrease a victim with 90% attack skill to a 35%, and do this 150 meters away. I am sure i have not yet figured out all the possible applications and combinations here. The Tribe will be coming up with new ones for years..

You are agreeing with some of the authors of articles in the most recent couple of issues of Foreign Affairs magazine. So it is not a far fetched pronouncement. A summary of what they say is.... Absent some game changing initiative, (yes political stuff even affects our shared fantasy worlds) : For years intercontinental business is likely to involve more shipping problems, more trade barriers. Just in time production will be harder to rrely on, inventories must go up, none of this is efficient. We can whine about the lost globalist golden age all we want, but we will be less frustrated if we adjust our expectations. I do wonder what the cost difference is between air and ocean freight. And as for why don't you print in some other country, ANY printer is going to be half way around the world from someone. So that's a non starter.

However, to get back to the topic of the thread, I doubt the building trades cults will have rune lords. Who are we talking about? Pavis, Wilms? City gods. Chaosium will not publish RQG writeups of them soon though. So if you want to forge ahead and give one of them rune lords, that's a goal for your players.

That will work if you can get the players to all take characters in the building trades. It could actually be interesting. Temple hires you to prettify cave entrance, that's a hook. Dwarfs hire you with a promise of showing Mostali secrets.

As i re-read the Rune cults chapter of RQG, I don't see any reason that there should be a fixed number of Rune Lord positions at any temple. Not as a general requirement, though who can say what might be in yet-unpublished cults books? If you play it that way, YGWV, but it would be too bad if any third -party reader were to take a Rune Lord office count limitation as canon. Why do i write this? The Rune Priest requirements on page 276 do include "Have a vacancy at the temple as determined by the gamemaster." But the Rune lord requirements on page 280 do not. Those requirements are - Initiate in good standing for 5 years. (And note that priests do not have a matching time requirement.) - Rune affinity and Devotion (deity) or Loyalty (temple) of 90% - CHA of 18+ - Cult skills, details vary And that's it. No vacant office required by the book. Yes the book calls Rune Lord an "office" but I don't see a reference to a limit. And I can see Gloranthan reasons why that would be so: Qualified candidates for Rune Lord are going to be pretty rare, much rarer than clan or tribal thanes. And rune lords do die in combat, so we ought not to assume that many live to a non-combat retirement, unlike priests who can perform their official functions into old age. If you have one more rune lord and one less initiate thane, your tribe or clan still has the same count of "nobles" to support, so it's not a big economic issue even though the lord may have perks.. And the rune lord is going to give you much more combat power than the average initiate thane: Cheap DI, maybe an allied spirit, probably higher skills. finally, it's the Hero Wars now! You want all the rune lords you can get. YGMV. -

Any player who wants to do that should take pains to put maximum detail into the Ancestor part of character generation.

Yes, I know what initiate means. And I know that priest is essentially synonymous with intermediary. What got me was the "only" part, since as I understand it if there is no ordained priest available SOME initiate will lead Worship on appropriate days. And initiates can divine, can consecrate (temporarily), and more important for game purposes they can use the god's powers (rune magic).

Does that mean that mere Initiates cannot use Divination? Does that mean there are no portentous dreams except for priests?

I am also not clear about who or what the Bad Man is. But I doubt "he" is a god, because apprentice shamans bucking for a promotion can occasionally beat him in a round of spirit combat. Prosopaedia page 13 says "powerful maleficient spirit" and shamans' special foe, who seeks to halt the dissemination of magical knowledge. What is Bad Man's relation to the Horned God, or Horned Man, since both terms are used? Evidently a perpetual but inferior opponent. Or a punching bag, always sprining back to be whacked by the next apprentice. Who is the Horned Man and why the confusion of names?