Squaredeal Sten

So if 3 point Rune spells are only available under the full moon,

And if inside the Glowline there is no full moon effect , then

Does that mean you (the Lunar you) cannot cast 3 point Rune spells inside the Glowline?

What am I missing here?

12 hours ago, Scornado said:

The rules seem silent on this.

Can a human communicate with a spirit if the human does not have Spiritspeech as a skill?  Clearly they can with those spirits that provide Spirit Magic spells but I think that's a special case - a simple communication to specifically perform the magic that is learnt as part of learning the spell.   Otherwise, if a human speaks in a language that the spirit understands (spirits with INT may know such languages) then I presume the spirit can understand the human.  Is that reasonable?  Can the spirit speak back so it is audible? Less plausible I suggest.  Can the spirit "get inside the human's head and impart their message that way, assuming they share a language?  What if there is no shared language?

I'm happy to wing this but if there's a rule I missed then I'd be pleased to learn. 

There is no rule you missed.

The answers are really up to you as a GM. 

But I wrote an adventure in which a ghost communicates in dreams, where it speaks an understandable language, probably  Heortling (Sartarite) because in life it was a Sartarite and the person dreaming is likely to be.  There is some ambiguity: it may be a god sent dream.    But if I were running it for a character wth a different native tongue, I would adapt for it to be understood anyway. Maybe in Tradetalk.  I think it's right to do things like that where necessary to your adventure.

In my opinion spirit  speech is most useful (A) in the spirit world, where a shaman has to bargain wth. or interrogate a spirit.  (B) To allow a shaman in the Middle World to speak to any spirit that materializes.  Though that spirit does not have to answer.

10 hours ago, Jason Farrell said:

Are you typing during an earthquake?

no. just fat fingerings the phone.

Did you have a question we could answer. or is this just a teaser?

Regardless. start your search for artists early and begin your art directio early.  Many artists have backlogs or summer vacation plans.  You can probably describe some key scenes now, also what you wsnt for a cover image.

7 hours ago, davecake said:

I remain convinced that Irripi Ontor sages that go on to become Red Goddess Initiates are the magical power gamer powerhouse of choice.

Yes, sorcery and Rune Magic. And unlike Lhankor Mhy, and his mostly detection and  investigative stuff, IO gets some great combat magic immediately- Mind Blast (one of the best attack spells in the game) and their sorcery includes ‘combat artillery’ like Moonfire. 
Free INT is used for both sorcery and Lunar magic, so that’s handy. And you know what makes having access to lots of spirit magic while maintaining a good Free INT much easier? An allied spirit!

So already looking good - Linar magic really punches it up though. 

but want to know what really makes it crazy? The Rune spell Cyclical  (Characteristic), specifically INT. bumps 18 INT up to 27, which of course applies to Free INT, for an entire day. 

Alternatively, consider a Jakaleel shaman, already a master of spirit magic, can use their whole INT for Free INT and still have loads of spirit magic through their fetch and allied spirit, and can comb8ne shamanic abilities like spell barrage with Lunar magic.

Or, and let me really push things to the limit here, why not both? We already know they are Illuminated, and joining multiple Lunar cults is rather encouraged, especially in the Major Classes of the Lunar College of Magic. Is there any reason why they can’t be both a shaman and a sorcerer? 

Crafty combination!.  So given a crystal or sprit or a fetch as a MP battery, Cyclical (INT) means free INT can be cranked up to give any spirit spells a powerful punch.  

On 4/30/2024 at 12:54 PM, Eff said:

Well, here's a primer on how the physical notation for mass movements works: https://www.indstate.edu/cas/sycamorebands/ensembles/athletic-bands/marching-sycamores/drill-primer

If you reenact under Hardee's manual, the step, quick, double-quick, and run are all shared, and the evolutions of the line are also relevant for thinking about these kinds of maneuvers. (Along with basics like forming and breaking line, wheeling left and right, etc.)

And then there's Labannotation and Benesh Movement Notation to describe the movements of individual dancers, which is helpful because large-scale choreography is, in the contemporary world, typically reliant on a significant degree of improvisation within boundaries. You can also look at examples designed to teach people how to perform ballroom or folk dances. 

The Indiana State band's coorinate charts assume a controlled and marked environment: A football field. For magical military field use, we can't assume that.  I wonder what other methods are in use.

But I can begin to imagine how to rehearse and direct mass  magical choreography.

And I can make assumptions about the division of the sister's Army into battalions, companies, platoons, files.

For example:  assuming the army of 500 in ranks, four battalions of 125 each with seven companies each of 16 and one officer,  each  containing two platoons of 8...

Army, fall in by battalion!

By battalion form line on the markers!  [These markers would be directing individuals, directed  by the General and her executive officer.  General Jinjur, in this context.. The battalion commanders move their battalions into line. ]

1st company 4th battalion, left wheel, march!  Halt!  [the company is facing south - south - east[

By battallion, change direction on the first company. 4th battalion!  [Battalion commanders command: Change direction By company, left wheel march, , forward, march.... center, dress! ]

By battalion, circle widdershins! [Battalion commanders direct the formation of circles.] ..... Face with the markers, face!

Cast madness, fuglemen post!  On the music - Music, sound off!

Drumroll!  [Generaj Jinjur raises her baton]

Cast!  [A crash of drums and cymbals follows] [General Jinjur points her baton]

[Multicolored but mostly red lights stream southward, and other manifestations of the Madness spell]

On 4/30/2024 at 10:32 AM, Eff said:

I would look at American-style marching bands, which are at about that size for large universities with an emphasis on the program, but which carry out complicated maneuvers on the field and in parade, frequently with colorful, even outlandish uniforms. 

I have been told by someone who has been in a marching band, that our drill as American Civil War reenactors (Hardee's manual) is actually more complex.  And certainly I am familiar with combining the elements to make bigger maneuvers up through brigade.

But that doesn't actually tell me the specific secrets of choreography or of marching bands.  

I wish I knew something about choreography.  How does one train and maneuver an "army" of 500 ceremonial dancers?  Presumably they are accomplished in magic, and the ceremonies are merely a very visible application of that.  

I have an urge to write a scene with dialogue, words of command, a chorus, and catastrophic magical effects several kilometers away.  Would that be how Great Sister protects against the Pentan nomads during  the interregnum?

1 hour ago, Nick Brooke said:

Have I ever suggested that my Glorantha doesn’t vary? That would be ridiculous!

(Also, the book is by my friend Chris. I think it’s one of the best-written supplements RuneQuest has ever had, but, you know, that’s just, like, my opinion, man. Link.)

I think it's pretty good too. 

There is still a lot of room to detail the Lunar Heartland.  So many cities, so many Lunar connected families, and almost nothing yet published to describe a walk through the  countryside, the Lodril worshippers.

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

I have plenty of material on Great Sister. But she does not have a cult that provides magic or powers to player characters. 

Oh, I do really get the principle that while someone is in the world, they may be worshipped but do not give Rune spells because they are still using their magic themselves.  And apotheosis removes them as active NPCs / political players / questgivers.  

35 minutes ago, Brian Duguid said:

............     She is not a patriarch. She does not control any kind of battlefield army.

.......

But Great Sister's Army is listed with battlefield armies on page 143 of The Lunar Way.  So what is it?  It seems to me that this contrast vs. what you just wrote indicates that the Great Sister's Army could stand some more definition. 

The context indicates to me that it is not equivalent to the Salvation Army.  But it appears not to have participated in the Imperial adventure in Sartar either.   So we have some of what it is not but not much of what it is.

1 hour ago, Eff said:

Given the Great Sister's origins, it's perhaps no surprise she's present in The Lunar Way as a ghostly presence, GS rendered symbolically powerless at last. But you can't keep a good demigoddess down. After all, surely she should be very important to the Lunar religious environment, overseeing approved and disfavored schools of mysticism, let alone the implications she has for Lunar politics. How should she be used? How could she be used? I don't know the first and the second is too big to encompass. 

But after all, she, Sedenya, did say to speak of yourself first, before speaking of her, and the Great Sister is a part of her; so it is most appropriate to talk about the DenEskErVa I encountered and developed through play. This Great Sister I encountered in the one thousand six hundred and twenty-second year of the Sun, when she turned up at Torang for a meeting with the PCs, who had been adopted into the Taran-il noble family by the decree of the family head, Flower Poem, she proved to be quite amoral, concerned first and foremost with the protection and well-being of the Lunar faithful and those under the rule and protection of the Lunars, but not particularly attached to the specific Lunar system. As such, she was willing to hear the proposals of the PCs out, but she took a backseat to Jar-eel as the game continued. 

Nothing about her magic, though the Sister's Army grew archer.

It looks as though you have already used Great Sister in a Lunar campaign.  Fascinating!  Do you feel like publishing it?

3 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

Jolly good! Her character sheet in Life of Moonson was written by Chris Gidlow, then adapted by me for Crimson King to add blatant BeeGees and foreshadowing.

That lost third paragraph might have mentioned that one of her worshippers (a mashup of Cosette from Les Miserables & Miss Sarah Brown from Guys & Dolls) and a typical insula shrine to Great Sister feature in Citizens of the Lunar Empire by Chris Gidlow.

Typical insula shrine .... so in Nick's Glorantha she IS worshipped!

Lots of room for development here.

10 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Yeah. The Facebook thread might tickle your brain but her relative absence in The Lunar Way boils down to the fact that she is not conventionally worshipped . . . these books are for entities with active cults. Of course YGWV.

Well the same applies to Nysalor, but Nysalor gets a chapter.  Which I and many others appreciate because it is a rather complete exposition on Illumination, so very useful.  

I suspect lack of material accounts for no chapter.  There is enough for a good sidebar.  Of course David Scott provides more above.

Great Sister:

I seems strange to me that one outstanding Lunar personage and member of the pantheon who does not have a chapter in The Lunar Way is Great Sister.  Strange because according to the timeline in Well of Daliath, as of 1630 or so she was important enough to have initiated a change of the Red Emperor’s Masks.  It strikes me that as our Gloranthas vary, Great Sister may be a significant off-stage presence in a  campaign, and i have a few thoughts about applying that..

But she is in the index:

Pages 9, 92, and 126: Great Sister is the demigod daughter of the Red Goddess.  “she is thought to have worn several masks. She was tasked by the Red Goddess to teach everyone something of the truth of Nysalor…”  so she founded one of the most important Nysalor schools in the Lunar Empire, the Sisterhood of New Consciousness.  She is a major player in the Lunar regime.  Is associated with making peace while her brother makes war.   So who is in charge after Emperor Argenteus goes down?  Great Sister should be at least one of the major players in the interregnum.  And will the Adventurers run into a Sister of New Consciousness?   What would that look like, other than Illumination?  Perhaps it's dangerous to talk to one of those sisters: You might hear a Nysalor Riddle. Any such illuminate is, of course, bucking for initiation into the cult of the Red Goddess, or already initiated. 

Page 16: The Valar-telsor family (one of the nine great imperial families)  has unspecified family ties to the Great Sister.  Looks like great backgound for a Lunar campaign, or even an adventure into Lunar Tarsh.  Now do we know anything else about the Valar-telsor family?

Pages 53-56; The Deezola cult is supported by the Great Sister (But the cult reports to the Red Emperor) and members of the cult will have Devotion to either one of the two..  ? So when Argenteus goes down is the cult split and in its own internal conflict? 

Page 104: Great Sister was present for the Battle of Castle Blue.

Page 109: Great Sister’s name is Deneskerva.

Page 143     Notwithstanding the stuff about making peace above, Great Sister controls “A sixth force called the Sister’s Army”.  

Page 151: Around her Lunar magic is magnified.

 This is not all that much content, but at least I collected it in one place, most;y for my own reference.

Thursday (Apr. 25) I got my email from Chaosium with a download link for the Lunar Way PDF.  So those of us who bought at ChaosiumCon are getting it now.  Turns out this was a manual process, thus the few days' delay.

Thanks, Chaosium!

Or you can have the adventurers leave Duke Raus' 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.

3 hours ago, Jens said:

This handy animated GIF shows the Red Moon's rotation, and the different phases for different regions. Not sure if anyone has compiled a complete set of phases per day outside of Dragon Pass.

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.

.

7 hours ago, metcalph said:

What's the Lunar Magic skill that affects more than just spirit magic?

On the specific examples, in the old GoG rules Speedart with 2 points amp would have been +10% to hit and +2 damage.  With 3 that went to 15% and +3 damage.  Demoralize is unchanged as far as I can see.  

 

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.

22 minutes ago, metcalph said:

What's the Lunar Magic skill that affects more than just spirit magic?

On the specific examples, in the old GoG rules Speedart with 2 points amp would have been +10% to hit and +2 damage.  With 3 that went to 15% and +3 damage.  Demoralize is unchanged as far as I can see.  

 

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..

On 4/15/2024 at 5:09 PM, KungFuFenris said:

......
With the way things are going these days, I am unsure if we will ever go back to any sort of normal, as we are not going to see less events affecting trade in the coming 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.

45 minutes ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

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.  

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.