Squaredeal Sten

Agree about the comparison to Esrolia. But what do you have in mind regarding the "malign Earth cults"? What comes to my mind is less manipulation and devousness, more overt threats. But I am not sure that is what you meant.

A Mostali toy:

I got my Durulz books 1&2 hard copy today, Apr. 8th.. It's great! Good cover, nice and readable. Great content! I am a hard copy type of guy.

You asked about the benefit of binding a spirit to an item: That lets you keep the spirit. If it is not bound to something then it will probably not stay around when the control spell wears off. You also asked about bindimg to an animal. One benefit of binding a spirit to an animal is that it can use the animal's senses, so the spirit can operate more autonomously. Allied spirits can use the priest's senses - but an allied spirit in an animal can use spells on targets its owner cannot see. If it does not have senses and is not an allied spirit, then according to page 250, as I read it a non-allied bound spirit can communicate with the binder only when it (its object) is in contact with the binder. So if it is out of physical contact, in that case although you can command it to do things, it can't use the binder's senses so if it does not have its own senses then what it can do is very limited. You would not be able to use it for a second spell (counting the owner's own spell as the first spell). This makes it just a MP and spell storage reservoir.

And in today's news... not a picture, but an archaeological finding; someone tested 3,000 year old hair and concluded that they had a shaman who used psychedelic drugs. (National Geographic) https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/psychedelic-drugs-ancient-europe-evidence-menorca?rid=AFC521EB4B1A385744B4D10D28E2E7FD&cmpid=org=ngp::mc=crm-email::src=ngp::cmp=editorial::add=Daily_NL_Thursday_Science_20230406

Same here. You have an initiation connection with both gods. In general I do not favor requiring rune point accounting that requires Iinformation that is not on the character sheet.

It seems to me as a general interpretation, tell me now if this is wrong: All rune spells listed under the short form for a cult, not only subcults but even those from other associated and even opposed cults, use the short form cult's rune points. It is one RP pool. As an example see Orlanth's Darkwalk. It is derived from an Uz (troll if you must use the pejorative term) Darkness cult. But it does not require joining the trolls to use the spell. In this case the spell was gotten by Orlanth through the legendary theft of the Sandals of Darkness. Orlanth initiates can take and use the spell as a power of Orlanth, and so they use Orlanth rune points.

Wind and water mills look to me like Mostali work. They involve more complex assemblies than the simple wheel.

Rammed triremes, being mostly wood, appear to have floated. The victors evidently routinely salvaged them, at least if the tow to a friendly port or beach was not too far. (I suspect they might capsize and so lose their ballast, which would make both floating and salvage easier.) At any rate, men might cling to the wreck for a considerable time, even in the water since the Mediterranean is relatively warm, not like the Atlantic. So the failure to rescue friendly sailors was gross negligence.

My personal experience after serious injury requiring surgery, and earlier when i had double pneumonia, is that once i was asleep, and I really really needed sleep, I slept for several hours before I woke up. Your sleeping habits may vary - but "light sleep" doesn't mean they awaken instantly.

I received my hard copy of Edge of Empire today (Apr. 3) and it looks great! Reads easily too. 223 pages of immersion in Imther.

Re. Prax: In addition there is a minor CA temple in Pavis.

According to a timeline in Well of Daliath, and a paragraph in King of Sartar / Events of My Life, in 1629ST the Colymar fight the Dinacoli. Can anyone say why?

You have me drooling in anticipation of that Sartar book.

There is a major CA temple / hospital in Jonstown for sure, the House of Mercy. See the Starter Set The World of Glorantha, p.34, it's in the Upper City. But there are many minor CA temples / hospitals. In Prax I believe there is one at Horn Gate, see p.69 of Borderlands, and one at The Paps. But besides that every city of size will have one. Even in Balazar there is a CA priestess in Trilus at Lightbringers Hall, with a shrine - see Dushi Sone on p.71 of Griffin Mountai .

So considering that "wild variation" in the RW historical record, the specific Gloranthan battle's 30% loss does not seem unreasonable. There was an effective pursuit, and/ or the units driven back into the river really did drown, and/ or the magic used increased casualties. As an example of that last point, in my ongoing Six Seasons based campaign the Adventurers

IF the slept target is injured by falling down, does he then wake up in accord with the last sentence of the first paragraph? Given the 1d4-1 roll, that gives a 75% chance that the target is injured and wakes up in the same melee round as the spell is cast. In that case the actual effect is to lose the actions intended for the MR and to lose 5 SR fir getting back up, maybe another 5 SR picking up a weapon again. To me this nerfs the spell. Interestingly, as written protective magic like Shield will reduce that 75% chance, making it the opposite of protective. So is it the intent of the house rule to nerf an annoying Chalana Arroy?

It seems to me that the simplest solution is for the hallucinator to rationalize whatever hhappens or does not happen, makeby elaborating details of the hallucination. The sword seems to bounce off. And remember, the character doesn't know what the players dice rolled. So nothing about a critical needs to be explained except that it missed. The GM ought only to make sure that fumbles take effect.

I am most looking forward to updating every cult to tbe RQiG standard, where initiates get reusable Rune magic. And to reconciling other differences between the RQ2 long firm and the already published RQiG short form, such as requirements to be initiated.

It's my impression that there is still some vagueness and / or regional variation in serfdom., as follows: In western Europe, a serf was bound to the land, which is slightly different from being bound to the landowner. The place in society was connected to the geographic place. Corvee labor for x many days per week was customary, not just sharecropping. And yes there were customary protections, though periodic rebellions would indicate that the lords' power to interpret those protections could be very arbitrary. However i am also aware that in Russia, prior to the emancipation of the serfs in the 1860s, ( https://www.britannica.com/event/Emancipation-Manifesto ) serfs were bought and sold, as well as removed from their ancestral lands. I am not sure what distinguishes that "serf" status from slavery, and would be interested in an explanation from someone expert in Russian history. As to how all this relates to Glorantha and the Ergeshi, who am I to complain when their status and numbers are retconned? I can see the desirability of softening the presentation of a player-character cult option. But I do see the Kitori/Ergeshi episode as an echo of the repeated Real World events in and around Mesopotamia, in which defeated peoples were relocated as groups to farm the conquerors' under-used land. (It appears that cities were chronically unhealthy places, tending to spawn epidemics,so they and their hinterlands had consistent negative population growth.) This treatment of whole communities as moveable assets explains the depopulated /ruined cities that Xenophon mentions in Anabasis, and a specific example is the Biblical "Babylonian captivity". However nasty this was for the victims, it is factual and I would not delete it from history any more than I would practice other censorship. The legal position of these captive peoples was probably analogous to serfdom.

I always took the annual return of the dead to be their return as spirits, not that the bodies all broke out of their Necropolis tombs and hiked to Nochet barefoot. RQiiG has already established that spirits can manifest in the Middle World, that is become visible.

Eff's " clan economics" thread from Oct 31 2020 [ link here: gives a considerably different figure for how much grain is required to feed a person for a year: A bushel is 27 kg and at 1500+ kilocalories per kg of barley a person doing heavy labor will need about 2-3kg of barley a day if they eat nothing else. This indicates that even if half the calories come from dairy, a little meat, legumes etc., a bushel of grain will feed the person for four weeks or less.

But the hallucinated raft can be hallucinated to sink a little. Is there any reason to think it would be hallucinated to be frictionless?

That is pretty light to be desirable for Uz. Looks like it is engineered to put sunlight on the center platform.. Do you have a concept for why the Uz would have a ceremony there? Night only, originally to have been in the light of the Blue Moon?

That looks like a pretty good rule of thumb on the cattle and oxen. Plus of course 8 is a fraction of a 20 cow hide and should also pay off in cheese. I don't know whether you want to get into fractional hides for the year end calculations.