Squaredeal Sten

Not so inspiring as the various works of art above - I have used these pictures to illustrate scenes in Prax: A group of whirlvishes - and a trail in typical brushy terrain.

That makes sense, since it is unique to Scorpion Queens. It's not as if a lot of Adventurers will be applying for the positions,

Speaking of Ritual of Rebirth: It was not re published in the Red Book of Magic. I wonder whether this was intentional.... ANYWAY assuming Ritual of Rebirth reappears , ... It seems to me that the scorpion queen will just make a strategic division of the captives of a raid. Some to be Devoured by the rank and file to distribute their knowledge, and some for her to eat to lay unusually talented eggs as an HR strategy. If she wants an interpreter and ambassador, eat an Issaries. For administration eat a Lankhor Mhy. For management and HR, eat an Ernaldan? On another related subject, I do see this flat contradiction between Cults of Terror page 35 and RQiG as written: In COT one requirement for acceptance as a Bagog Rune Priest is to have 18+ POW. Clearly that is not going to happen with a species max of 14. I would expect this to be resolved when the appropriate Cults of Ruequest volume is published. Meanwhile I can run with POW 14 Bagog priestesses.

Yes that RQ2 to RQiG transition. It is hard to estimate how the Cults book will treat that for Bagog. It is possible that the Bagog concept will be different from other cults, since in the RQ2 cult no spirit magic was taught to lay members.(p.34 of Cults of Terror.). Exactly how do the lay members get to their suggested Mobiliry or Healing spells? It must be by Devouring. But the chance of learning a given spell by Devouring other scorpion men is only INT+POW /2, an average of 7%; lower yet for Devouring other species, an average of 14/4 = 4%. At that rate it seems to me the road to getting the Mobility or Healing magic to qualify for initiation is hard and long. Recognize that with a low species max POW (It's 14: max rolled=12 + min rolled =2) and a starting average of 7, the Initiates can't afford to sacrifice much. Worse, their original RQ2 list of typical spirit spells does not include any that help build POW like Disruption does. It should take a very fortunate scorp to build much POW. It looks to me as though the Sacred Time opportunity may be their major chance.

It looks as though cover art for Jonstown Compendium POD needs to be done with technical guidance on the dimensions of the whole cover, front and back.

I already ordered my hard copy. The cover art looks great, too.

Re. Organization and INT (and effect on tactics) Cults of Terror indicates lay scorps are assigned to Initiates, initiates to Rune Lords. So if the Initiates are smart enough to understand "skirmish line", or more likely "spread out and sling" then they should make it happen. My thought process is that with species 2D6 INT, averaging 7, and natural selection in Devouring, the Initiates should average 8-9 ,(essentially throw away one 1 when rolling INT: The 2INT ones get eaten early.) Most Rune Lords should have iNT in the 8 to 12 range, only lower if they have an impressive and durable Chaotic Feature. This INT will not give them characteristic bonuses for Battle skill, but the scorpion men as a species will have developed simple skirmishing and envelopement tactics: "spread out and sling", "surround them" (this is harder and takes supervision), and "rush them NOW". I might be inclined to allow the Rune Lord to change tactics on a D100 roll vs. INTx5. So the rush may be delayed until the dice roll right.

I have GM’d and also played against vanilla scorpion men as depicted in the Bestiary pages 104-105, and found them suitable and dangerous opponents for new characters: If you run 1 scorp vs. 1 fairly new Adventurer the scorps have the edge of a second (sting) attack plus poison, and are really dangerous. But now GMing for essentially a rune level party, a squad of these – or a squad drawn from the RQ2 supplement Creatures of Chaos 1 – dies pretty easily. (In the latter case, it doesn’t help the poor Chaotics that their RQ2 supplement weapons skills are below the example that the Bestiary shows, so review and boost those when running RQiG). So tell me whether the following makes sense to you and is consistent with the background: I took another look at Cults of Terror pages 33-37 with a view to making a scorpion man horde, or at least a platoon, and here is the scheme I came up with: ‘1) The scorpion men will organize according to the Bagog ‘s pyramidal hierarchy, with about three to five lay members (sword fodder) per initiate and four or five initiates per Rune Lord. Thus a platoon of about 17-31. 2) The lay scorpion men will have skills of 35-50%, know Mobility or Heal 3, and that’s about it . Only their roughly 35% chance of a Chaotic feature makes them really dangerous. 3) The initiates will have at least one weapon skill above 50%, know Mobility & Healing 3,Ironhand, Protection 2. Occasionally another spirit magic spell or two, assuming they have devoured some hapless human(s). No Rune magic (though that may change when the Bagog entry in Cults of Glorantha come out next year.). But they will average a point or two greater POW due to natural selection in the devouring game. 4) The Bagog Rune Lords will be truly dangerous: First, they are likely to have more spirit magic: Darkwall, Healing up to 6, and Protection 4. Second, they can have Rune spells . And although most of the Bagog magic is unimpressive, the big prize spell is Carapace, a 2 pointer which combined with Protection can make the Rune lord near impenetrable. Your scorpion Rune Lords should never leave home without it because it even protects their tails against being cut off in parried sting attempts. The next best Rune spell, Venom Boosting, does make the sting a little more deadly but does not increase its penetrating power, so he is still relying on 2D6 to penetrate the human’s armor and magic - in other words a low probability event against iron armor. Summoning a small darkness elemental, Shield, and Multispell are all useful. Third, they will have weapons skills of 90%(+), making them competitive with high level humans even though the scorp is still likely to only have a club. Fourth they will have an allied spirit to cast healing as a first priority and then other magic. This spirit’s MPs will be especially valuable as the RL himself has POW constrained by the low species maximum. 5) Of course the Bagog Rune Lords may also have looted human weapons. These will only have a slight damage advantage over a large club, but will be more durable. And who knows, your scorp may have picked up something horrendous like a Great Ax, though he should have a much lower skill than with his club due to only gaining the first 25% of the devoured former owner’s skill. 6) Finally the Rune Lords should have an even higher chance of a chaotic feature and better POW, just because of natural selection. 7) It seems to me that the scorpion man horde should operate in platoons: Against an enemy in open order, the platoon will: Deploy with a skirmish line of 12 lay level slingers supervised and healed by three initiates, and behind them a hard knot of the Rune lord, two initiates, and about eight lay members. With their chitinous skin they should win or break even in most slinging fights. If enemy go down early the skirmishers seize them for later devouring. Meanwhile the hard knot picks out a leading enemy and rushes him using Mobility, may try for knockbacks, and will outnumber him heavily if he doesn’t have close left and right hand supporters. Against an enemy in close order / shield wall they should be much less effective because the scorpion men’s chaotic inclination will make it unlikely that they drill themselves, so will not be in phalanx themselves (and they are unlikely to have shields anyway). But against this close order enemy they should extend their line and try to overlap the human phalanx. If there are enough scorpion men a Cannae should result as the humans’ flanks collapse and their center moves forward. Against an enemy in rough terrain the scorpion men should exploit their multilegged climbing advantage and try to jump down from trees and boulders onto the humans. Scorps also will unexpectedly swarm up walls and slopes that humans would have a hard time climbing.

Running scorpion men as GM vs a Rune level party. I am impressed by how many scorpion men I need. ( If I want to transition from theater of the mind to table top.) Preferably not just a couple of poses. Has anyone yet cast a large set?

I believe you have to (1) Prepare your binding item, yes 3 points of enchantment in this case for the elemental's 3 characteristics. (2) Summon - or have someone else summon. (3) Control with a POW vs POW especially if someone else summoned it, for example an enemy. (4) Bind. PoW vs POW. Like you I see ritual practices as supporting the first spell but not being able to support a different spell with the same ritual, because the caster has to. concentrate on one spell at a time. But in a team effort someone else might summon, so the second person's ritual could help with the second person's control.

Oh, i hadn't been thinking of that. So how did it turn out with the Ulerian Adventurer?

So back to the topic of Ulerian initiation ceremonies... What culture is this Adventurer from, wat culture is your campaign in?? That will make a diffetence. Has this player already made a backstory for the Ulerian Adventurer? What do you and/ or the player envision the typical path to initiation is? Or is this a non typical path? Possibilitie I can see, which don't deny or exclude other possibilities you can see, include: 1. A Six Season style adulthood Initiation in which one choice or path taken reveals an affinity for Uleria, just as other alternatives to Ernalda include Babeester Gor. 2. A career path: start out as an amateur and go for pro. Listen to all that advice to do work you like. 3. City Uleria temple, or Apple Lane temple, offers instruction. Sensible young people may take the course(s). Sex Ed with a religious component combined with Poli Sci when you get to love binding society together. Reminds me of that passage in Cults of Prax, "know arts of Uleria", you know some knowledge & skills can come in handy. Sometimes you take the intro course and choose it for your major. Sometimes people want to know more about Uleria. Loving the whole world...isn't that positive and constructive like joining the Peace Corps? Three years later, initiation... 4. Intercultural exchange as it were, per the current Apple Lane, in which Just thoughts, hopefully relevant to the OP's campaign planning.

But Uleria is not only sex workers. And in the godtime was involved in the gods' reproduction too, including Dendara. Dendara is not likely to be Associated, but shouldn't be lower than Neutral. At worst - Maybe the relationship is like with a 'black sheep" cousin who sleeps around a lot. She is still family even if Debdara does not show her off. But more likely, given the Mesopotamian flavor of Peoria, and ?was it Herodotus who reported on temple prostitution there? Dendara accepts Uleria as a piece of the culture. AFAIK The RW historical record would indicate that most patriarchy is OK with sex workers, and the head patriarchs tend to patronize them when power is (rarely) not a sufficient aphrodisiac to get it free. At higher social levels the exchange just tends to be jewelry and Influence instead of cash. Yes I am sometimes cynical about patriarchy as well as other flavors of hierarchy. Anyhow, re. Scott-Martin's clarification, I think most of us can see thst Uleria is definitely not the same as the Earth Goddesses, despite some overlap in major functions. No shared initiation. They have different secrets. That doesn't mean the lay membership of the cults are mutually excluded. IMHO If you have sex excluding rape, you are a lay member of Uleria, no pun intended. The day Ulerians are excluded from the Dendara temple is the day Peloria starts to die out.

What does the cult compatibility I don't think Uleria is on the old RQ2 cult compatibility table, but I doubt Uleria is or can be hostile to either one. What their reciprocal attitudes to Uleroa may be is undefined to my knowledge but it can't be hostile or their adherents would die out.

How do they make buttercream frosting without refined sugar? There is a thread somewhere in these forums that essentially says sugarcane is rare in Glorantha and they just make a brown sweet liquid with it. Will have to search for that. Anyway you need powdered sugar for buttercream icing. Too wet and the icing is runny. That may be your Chaotic influence. [My wife has been making cakes since well before we married, I have helped - mostly provided muscle- with big wedding cakes, I don't have the skill but am familiar with three or four types of icing.]

As for the smell, a separate building across a courtyard would be indicated. But I am not sure the smell of the stable / horse dung would be a significant problem for people in a horse using culture. Horse really doesn't smell that much, not as bad as cow or pig. Have you ever been to a stable, either riding or racing? People in Backford probably make less of the smell than you or I would. Consider that there are working and riding animals in the city. People may also keep pigs there. Butchers slaughter, did you ever smell a slaughterhouse? And remember that most Gloranthan temples are places of animal sacrifice (one wonders whether the junior Initiates get the job of cleaning up. IMG an initiate will be honored to run the barbecue after the sacrifice, take your Worship roll.) And people use privies. The cumulative smells of a small Gloranthan city would be like a small pre industrial RW city. I don't know how old YOU are, but: Remember that in the 1920s and 30s horse drawn vehicles were still in common use in European and American cities. So what smells were your grandparents or great grandparents used to in their youth? Anyway, the villa picture indicates that a separate building or wing can fit into the cost estimate. As well as a low wall, garden type wall and not a real fortification.

The Weapons and Equipment guide doesn't give you a price quote for "2 story barracks with tower and gilded dome" but if you use it for precedents and comparables you can make a logical estimate. I am not sure how many troops are in a 'file" but if it's like ancient and post-medieval pike files it's about 16 folks, maybe less depending on which armies.. So my estimate is 32 for a double file. You, the GM, will know. OK, the barracks: A comparable is "villa", accommodating 15, for 200 Wheels. (page 105). See villa picture p.104, doesn't it look comparable? Another comparable is "large home" accommodating 12, for 40-100 Wheels. Your description as 'barracks" indicates fewer square meters per person than a villa. At least when i was responsible for supervising barracks it was that way. But the shrine, tower, stable and 2nd story drill hall add that area back, so I'd go for the villa. I don't understand the need for the 2nd story drill hall. A drill field will work better for training field troops. And if they really are pikemen or spearmen then you can't drill with a low ceiling. Ask me how I know! I put a bayonet hole in my mother in law's ceiling, going to right shoulder shift arms with a musket. The tower? W&E Page 108, fortification table: Tower, stone:50W. But the dome gilding will be extra. You can assume what you want for the dome, it can be timber and not stone - but the gilding... Page 33 says a package of five sheets of gold leaf has a standard price of 20L and the sheet is 10cm square. So gilding will cost 400L per square meter plus the wages of a craftsman to apply it,. There are no productivity standards but a master (p.52 examples at least show "skilled") with a rare skill might cost 1L a day for a short term hire in my opinion, and I'd arbitrarily decide applying gold leaf will happen at a rate of one square meter a week. That's a total of 407L per square meter. If we arbitrarily say the dome on the watch tower is only 2m in diameter (1 m radius), and the dome is half of a sphere - then its area is 0.5x 4 pi R squared, so 0.5x4x3.1416 x 1 = 6.292 square meters area x 407L = a dome gilding cost of 2561 lunars. Therefore: Barracks 200 Wheels, tower 50 Wheels, gilding 2561L, total 7561L. The work force will be 'local", and Backford will have builders. Furnishings? Similar to the cost of furnishing a large house, The page 110 example is for exotic furniture but this won't be exotic, you want sturdy. Say 20L? i have only a vague idea what the shrine activation ceremony will be. Officially per RQiG p 284 you need at least 75 lay members and initiates worshiping there regularly, and your garrison is not that big. So either you have local co-religionists, or it's a "site'. IMHO you may be looking for a holy relic to beef that up, and hand wave it if you don't like my opinion. I suspect the ceremony is conducted on a holy day by an out of town high priest, perhaps using magic that is not in our combat-oriented lists. You need a sponsor pledged to maintain the shrine but that is the acolyte. There is a long boring set of sermons and speeches and prayers, everyone Worships and sacs 1 or 2 MPs each. Everyone then breaks for a celebratory meal. Open bar. Late reveille the next morning.

Almost Everyone is a lay member of Uleria. ( IMHO broos are not, as they hate everyone including themselves.) But for the rest of "everyone", adults anyway, Uleria gets her MPs routinely, without need to gather in a temple, whenever we come together in her spirit. Her occasional temples are bonuses and teaching spaces to benefit mortals. I do think it is inconsistent with the background literature to try to make Uleria a chaste goddess. She is clearly not chaste, as the examples of her initiates show, and an initiate's goal is to better conform to the example of the god. And while that may bother some of you reading this, it doesn't bother Uleria. It doesn't bother her initiates either, and that may be one of the life changing secrets learned in initiation. The original poster said that this thread is the result of a player who chose to create a Ulerian Adventurer. To me that is a good indication of the nature of play the player seeks. Why shouldn't the GM play along if he or she wishes? After all the game is a shared creation.

Uleria had holes ripped in her. Making "Uleria's net". That is different from being ripped into separate pieces The mythic correspondence is the net that catches us all. Or almost all. Maybe it is appropriate to compare this to Arachne Solara's web, time, which also seems to function as a net. These are two different occurrences of the net simile in Gloranthan legend.

For what it's worth the RQ3 Pavis Threshold to Danger has "powerful people" pages 17 through 20.

I would think the benefit sought in the heroquest would be controlling one of the items listed: ending kinstrife etc. But the quest itself would be an attempt to match the elements of the myth. Multiple Eurmali? Sure enough they will be difficult. Eurmal doesn't have the disorder rune for nothing. That is what will make the quest difficult. The challenge for the quester is how to make it happen anyway.

Metcalf and Joerg are right; I found Boggkes in Anaxial's Roster. They are a manifestation of pure Disirder. [ For the original poster and all of us less experienced folks. Anaxial's Roster is a currently out of print Formerly Heroquest book. In future maybe to be reprinted for Questworlds .] So back to the O.P.'s request. Perhaps that particular piece of Ulerian legend could be Heroquested at Sacred Time by Do you think they could stand in for Boggles?

I stand corrected. Will fix that..

As Eratocomatose Lucidity is a 3 point Rune spell, I doubt that all brand new Uleria initiates come out with it. A lot of people will sacrifice 1 POW to start with and why take a spell you cannot cast? Although the three listed Ulerian Rune spells are 2 and 3 pointers. Maybe others, 1 pointers, will be revealed in the Cults of Glorantha series. Or maybe a 1 point initiate just has the common spells. But I suspect that Eff is otherwise generally right, the initiation starts you off on walking the path of the god and gaining some of the god's insights. Probably not all of them at once because then what would be left to learn? Most new Adventurers' Cult Lore is far short of 100%. I would guess that the initiate of any cult won't have all the insights until the priesthood, and maybe not then. But the new Initiate will have been instructed in all the god's aspects even if the initiation itself doesn't involve enacting them all. The initiation should Involve choosing or not choosing the god's path. Some of the aspects of Ulerian myth like Should be reserved for an Ulerian heroquest. At least saved for Sacred Time reenactment with a specially picked audience and a set of guards. An Ulerian heroquest of that myth gone wrong might intersect with a broo's heroquest. The initiation Itself will be both preceded and followed by instruction in the cult skills. Uleria is not among the short form cult write ups in RQiG, but you can approximate them by examining the skills of the Ulerians in the Apple Lane temple: See the GM screen pack Gamemaster Adventures book page 60.. And examining the character sheet: who else teaches courtesan? and the Apple Lane examples indicate Ulerians should have other strong communication skills like Charm and Dance. Remember that the cults involve daily life as well as contact with the godtime.

What is the status of the Volsaxi in 1625-1629? The Sartar tribal map https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/the-tribes-of-sartar-1625-1626/ shows Whitewall as a tribe(!) At the southernmost edge if Sartar. The Heortland map https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/heortland-map/ shows the Volsaxi immediately south of that if I read it correctly. The history is that the Volsaxi became independent of Belintar, and under Sartarite influence and aid the Kitori were crushed, resulting in Sartarure control of the trade south to the Holy Country. Presumably the Volsaxi were nominally independent until 1619. But after the Lunar conquest, Broyan's revolt, and Broyan's death, Heortland descends into localism and warlordism. Are the Volsaxi, with their reputation for independence, still operating as a tribe or are they just a memory? When does Argrath acquire influence over Heortland?