Squaredeal Sten

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.

Yes: for the Advenurers to be awarded five hides of land is to say that they need the services of at least four tenant farmers, or of herders who are also at Poor SOL, in order to get income from that land. We usually hand wave finding these tenants. It is most reasonable to assume that there are many people looking for the job of tenant farmer, and / or that the land already has tenants. So the Poor are not exceptional, and although the Adventurer may be born poor and find social mobility in your campaign, there is no way that tenant farmer or herder can be just a "starting job" for most NPCs, (as fast food jobs are in certain RW mythology, and I will end that mental thread of RW politics now.) To me the major differences between a Poor tenant farmer and the Free SOL farmer are (1) obviously the tenant splits the harvest with the landlord but also (2) that the Free have more extended family who live together in a longhouse and probably also own cattle and are socially equal members of the local clan, while the Poor have less support network and struggle to own a few sheep. If you examine Apple Lane as presented in the GM Screen Pack,, you will find that the example tenant farmers have short biographies and families. These are canon examples of the social background in Sartar. Some of these tenants have come as refugees, so they have no social network, are not part of the local clan, and have no expectation of being assigned land directly by the Earth temple (which would give them all of the harvest before tithes, making them Free.) By the way one path to generating adventures that is indicated in the Weapons & Equipment book is to give the Adventurer hides of land that are not already in agricultural production and so do not have tenants. This land may not even be suitable for farming, though herding is an alternate use. The Adventurer may have to Improve it to actually get income. Maybe the Adventurer will start a mine and have to find miners, who will be another category of half-free worker. In this case the GM may have the Adventurer role play the recruitment process instead of hand waving it. As with RW sharecroppers the Adventurer would advance the miners food and tools so they don't starve before any ore is produced. Now you essentially have peons. This is getting off the original topic of whether non skill tables have auto fail rolls. Though the original question did also deal with economic class. Perhaps it deserves its own thread or its own title.

All this builds desire for the rumored Gloranthan Cookbook. Which should have sections on Making Flatbread - which people may well do at-home in the Real World- as well as on making beer (also done by hobbyists in the RW) and making impala cheese (rather hard to do in the RW, first catch your impala). For the record making alcoholic fruit beverages is something we have done in my house as a byproduct of making "Brandied fruit", which is a great topping for ice cream. If you do this with over-ripe figs (I planted two fig trees the year that we bought this house and the harvest varies greatly from year to year) the result is pretty powerful. Fig "wine" as well as date wine is something to think about as products of Prax and southeastern Sartar, because figs grow well in a dry climate and IMG the oasis people grow dates. These are potential trade goods as well as items of descriptive game flavor.

Mechanically, it;s births connected to a player character. But the intent regarding the population as a whole is very ambiguous: the issue is just not addressed. Personally, I would say it's not MGF for even he imaginary kids to die at a rate greater than the general population.

There is a lot to unpack there, and I'd like to point out things Marza's adventurers will see little of: First, don't expect loaves of baked bread. Look at the list of food in RQiG: It suggests flatbread. The ordinary household will not have an oven. You can make flatbread on tbe hearth, or if you object to a few ashes then use a griddle or flat stone. Think of anything from focaccia to naan to tortillas to those tasty Navaho flatbreads in Rick Meints' article. In my Glorantha a risen loaf bread is an urban delicacy, something you would expect in Nochet or maybe Boldhome. Perhaps baked in a jar Egyptian style rather than in an oven. A new thing. YGMV. Flatbreads are cheap, ten for a clack per RQiG. Everyone eats them, the poor eat little else but flatbread and pottage. Your Adventurer will eat flatbread on campaign, as they keep fairly well. There are no MREs or C-rats in 1625 ST. Grains and also peas and lentils will often be eaten as pottage, otherwise known as mush. This has the advantage that all you need to cook it is a pot, a fire, and maybe a spoon or a stick. Pottage was a major food of the poor in pre industrial RW historical times. The only pottage you probably eat today is probably oatmeal if you don't count rice, which needs a high tech accessory, the pot lid. That small pot listed in the RQiG equipment list is likely the only cooking utensil your Adventurer has. He probably carries a bag of meal, maybe some peas, and makes pottage on his camp fire. Meat: You are unlikely to find a butcher shop in the village. Most of its inhabitants will not eat meat every day, and most of the meat they eat will be a communal meal after a sacrifice. Your animal sacrifice not only pleases the god but also pleases your fellow cultists. Don't expect much salt meat with salt at the salt prices in RQiG! In the RW we use about a tablespoon of salt per preserved pound of meat, maybe a little less when brining it, but remember for brining you use a saturated solution. It is more likely that Gloranthan people will smoke or jerk meat, Jerky is meat sliced thin and then smoked dry. A little dried meat in the pottage or the vegetable stew will improve it. Your Sartarite Adventurer might have some jerky in the field. Your Praxian is much more likely to have it. Any Sartarite professional hunters will find their fellow villagers appreciate some of their meat and will return favors. Others in the hunter's household will probably provide most of the grain and legumes the hunter eats. The rich may eat meat every day, the small middle-class maybe two times a week. Inns will have meat per RQiG and W&E: a little in the pot for the average guest's meal; sausages or slices for the more prosperous guests. Probably one type of meat a day, not a lot of menu choices but the inn may also have dried sausages.

But I agree with you thst the cumulative child mortality seems excessive. It would imply that Hsunchen must die out. What would you suggest as an adjustment? I would think that in conjunction with the childbirth table and considering the violence and predators, we would want to come out with at least 2.5 surviving children per fertile woman if we don't want and exoect population to decline.

That's not weird in a society in which the wealthy can pay for Rune spell cures for their children. And the poor are described as often going hungry and living in huts, per the Standard of Living section in RQiG. But if I recall correctly survival is not automatic if you have a bad harvest roll.

Just thinking about that particular detail: It seems to me the kiln issue is whether it is a personal asset or a family / guild / community asset. It's an efficiency issue: If it is the priest's allied spirit then when the priest dies its gone. Very inconvenient if indeed you need a spirit of the kiln. In that case you have to hire a shaman to find you a new spirit, or you need a new priest of Gustbran who may or may not get an allied spirit in his first year. Can you afford to have no kiln spirit for a year? On the other hand if your kiln spirit is a wyter or simply a fire elemental who likes hanging out there, the family or community persists, the spirit had several worshippers, and a new person can take over heading up the relationship with the spirit.

So Lords of Terror vs. Cults of Terror.

Do you have a different version of Ritual of Rebirth, perhaps from the pre-final version of the Cults book? What it actually says in Cults of Terror page 36 is: [You may occasionally quote small sections of text, as long as you make clear where the text is from. By “small sections” we mean up to a sentence or two.] That does not include the words "the actual person". All that is specified that they keep is ' The upper torso and head will remain identical to the one devoured; the lower body will now be that of a scorpion. Old weapon skills of the devoured will remain intact, as will former knowledge; ... " So specifically weapon skills, generally "former knowledge" - and that MAY be interpreted to include spirit magic. I am inclined to say that, though it is not specifically there. I would think knowledge includes non-weapon skills, languages, area lore, even memory of the family and friends, etc (So the scorp can present itself as your Adventurer's former friend or relative, can recognize you and tell you how great it is to be a scorpion, come be on the wining side, hold still and let the Queen eat you, it will be over quickly. But remember, he or she is now one of them, are you really dealing with the former friend or is this essentially a recording being played by an inhuman and Chaotic enemy? Horror movie stuff, drama for the game.) But it does not specify that the person has not died. Being eaten pretty much tells me they are dead. Their spirit is reborn a season later, it is not in the Underworld, but in the interim they died and it is way past the usual seven days for resurrection even if you could reconstitute the body from scorpion crap. It does not specify that the reborn has his or her former cult status, Rune spells, allied spirits, or fetches. Or Rune affinities. Or characteristic stats. I am pretty sure the characteristics will be revised to reflect scorpion man stats.

Which brings up interesting points: Ritual of Rebirth says the reborn comes back with all skills and [spirit magic] spells. But what happens to the fetch? No fetch, no shaman. And after all the old shaman is dead. And reborn as a scorpion man meaning lower species maximum POW.

What shaman will teach magic to scorpion men? The Bestiary says "no one will teach it to them." And lay (relatively young) scorpion men will rarely have cash to pay, presumably at standard prices. They rarely have jobs other than hunter or raider. They get to keep 10% of their loot and their catch, IAW Bagog cult rules. I can imagine a broo shaman teaching them. But the broo will not be teaching out of the kindness of his heart. And while Cults of Terror says broo may sometimes work with scorpion men groups, it seems likely the relationship is with the group / the queen, and is motivated by the advancement of Chaos, not casual individual relationships. LIving with them (scorps) sounds dangerous. After all a broo headed scorpion man means that a broo ally got eaten. So yes I can imagine a scorpion man buying spell teaching from a broo shaman, but it must be a rare event. That will not account for most lay scorps having magic. A few yes, most no.