Squaredeal Sten

Oh, that's on a shelf in sight.

BOHM? You lost me on that acronym. I can guess Book Of. But ?? HM"=Her Majety? Hairy Magic?

That is something to work on: A LM hero's journey which exercises the skills of bureaucracy. But I'll skip the mind numbing boredom, that is for between game sessions.

A myth without a final success....that is different.

As I understand it a shrine might have a sacred item, but dpes not have to: as alternatives it might mark a place where Eurmal did something, or where a great Eurmali did something famous, or it might just have a congregation who want a place to worship without having to use rune points. It might be mobile, there are other Gloranthan precedents for that. Since Tricksters are outlaws unless they have a protector...And since three tricksters together are a conspiracy...Even a Trickster would not be foolish enough to leave such a list where you could get it. You might think you have such a list but it is a deception, at best a nasty joke. Maybe someone is being framed. I would think that a Trickster shrine would be at the lower end of shrine size. Maybe ten worshippers. Maybe it is a box carried around by the senior initiate, with cult items like practical joke tools. Each shrine would be able to teach one rune spell, so that is why you see Tricksters on tbe road. On the other hand an Orlanth temple might have a Eurmal shrine as an associated cult. You may need a good explanation if you are actually found worshipping there, unless you are an acknowledged Eurmali bound to a protector. Maybe you could say it was in hope of averting Eurmal's attention, so he would not ruin your happy life.

Publish it! We have a shortage of usable myths. I wouldn't know where to find even one for Heler.

Thinking about that, just personally 1) No. It is a cult spirit, not an eclectic multi cult spirit. And it is from a particular God, not a group of gods. 2) As GM I would start it with a cult rune spell, indeed I would also insist on any newly initiated PC taking a cult rune spell first. I am not sure that I would ever allow tbe spirit to take rune spells from other (associated cult) lists, at least not before exhausting the cult list. And I also doubt that an allied spirit can participate in Spell Trading.

😄 I wonder whether having the Allied Spirit reside in your bejewled sword, or tiara [can a tiara be a cult object for Orlanth Rex?] , or maybe putting a jeweled collar on its cult animal, would qualify and raise its CHA. Otherwise I can see a Lankhor Mhy spending Dark Season reading to an AS from "How to Make Friends and Influence people". By lamp light. 😀

Jason said it can have rune points, plural, and at GM discretion a "reasonable number" of rune spells, which indicates a matching rune pool. And it will need more than one rune point to cast its Adventurer's better rune spells. Giving an allied spirit with just one rune point would be a pretty frustrating gift. I suppose if the GM wants to jerk the player around a little and make him or her sacrifice POW soon, that would be one way.

I am not sure that wyters in general have no INT. IMG this one does. The one in Six Seasons does too. And the one in Citizen's of the Lunar Empire. The Bestiary says some spirits have INT, and specifically a ghost does.

Little chance right now. Because (1) it is long, and (2) right now, subject to the actual role playing and of course further development of the whole adventure, I think it might make a piece of a Jonstown Compendium publication. But I will give you a summary: Using mostly numbers from Chaosium material, a caravanserai in a well chosen location with occupancy in good seasons similar to that of a successful modern hotel can make a lot of money. "Well chosen " is the critical thing though.

Not al. that much like an issaries priest - he never made priest in life - but he will certainly insist on his due, a contract is a contract. Let's not open ourselves to a Spirit of Raw Greed here. We are both Issaries together, after all. (Oratory roll - oh that's only for use on NPCs). He was glad to get the wyter role because the inn is what he DI'd for, you'd say he already achieved his bargaining goal there. I think he might be consulted on running the inn. Certainly on staff recruitment as several prospects used to work for him and others will be members of his clan.

Issaries rune spells, yes. So the wyter can Lock a door. But note, POW is expended casting them, and for spirit magic, wyters regenerate no MPs. And has Issaries specialty spirit spells. But the MPs must be those sacrificed to him, so this wyter is not going to power through situations. I appreciate your observation on GMing style. I can have the wyter complain in a dream that people are not sac"ing MPs. Maybe since you suggest it I will have him complain even before the end of construction, that he expected to get some MPs from this gig, and no one is communicating with him. That should be a decent in game reminder of the group membership mechanics issue. The hiring decisions and offers are going to be role played. Though not drawn out Since two of the group have more RQ GMing time than I do, I don't feel that I have to nurse them through the implications of the background. On the other hand maybe other folks don't make our Issaries role play as much business in his business as I do. On the third hand after the session (Like Orlanth you can portray me with lots of hands😄) I gave him my pro forma income statements for generic caravanserais, rather than making him work it out. ( I am the one with the MBA, so it was not my first rodeo. ) But that does not include a wyter on the staff. I think the wyter priest issues may be new to both of us. They certainly are to me, which is why I raised the topic here.

I have a new wyter to GM. Who / which I had only thought through in outline. As always the adventure grows more detail the closer I get to running it. I do see the reference to special magical rules. I am grateful to David Scott for his wyter of Apple Lane as an example. In this case the wyter is not the prize of a heroquest, but instead is the result of a Divine Intervention. So it doesn't have a legendary source. The wyter is essentially a volunteer cult spirit. This wyter is the spirit of an innkeeper whose inn was burned by the Lunars in their 1625 retreat. The adventurers have become the god's answer to his DI, which was primarily for the inn to be saved (or rebuilt.) After appearances as a ghost, and after Divinations, the ghost is becoming a wyter resident in the old hearthstone: Wyter of the caravanserai which is being (re)built. After the discussion so far I believe I will make the wyter aware of events in the caravanserai so long as members of the MP sacrificing inn staff are aware of them, plus events in the co- located spirit world. He is not a water Elemental nor an insect exterminator, and has no Extinguish spell so will not douse fires. He has a modest POW, that is what remains after the DI plus one POW sac'd to him so far. Most of his cult spirit and rune magic will have only rare application to events in or around the caravanserai, because I am only giving him magic suitable for a live non-adventuring NPC. It strikes me that a shaman might be persuaded to educate the wyter with more magic. But that would be a major cost to the business. A player decision if they think about it. As Bill pointed out, the wyter's main support of the community is via the Loyalty which will be taken, IF the Adventurers make that MP sac a requirement when hiring staff. We will see whether they think to do that. It will be a test of how much the players' minds are in Glorantha. I have got to think about how much the wyter will communicate with the staff other than the priest / primary owner. Seems to me he will have to materialize, probably at a cost in MPs. Or he will appear in dreams on site.

I disagree with the proposition that Chaos and Illumination are equivalent in Glorantha. (And have no reason to believe in either iof them in the Real World, except for small-c chaos as a mathematical concept.) I am pretty sure that the broos and scorpion men are not generally illuminated. If that is so then the proposition is disproved as a general rule. There is an intersection between the two, but there is also an intersection between illuminates and characters with affiliation with many or all of the other runes. To me illumination means the character has realized it's only a game. Which most of the players already know, though many of us can think of individuals who seem to have lost track of that.

A wyter is the spirit that binds a group together (Group can be a clan, tribe, temple, regiment, guild, ship's crew, etc.) Per RQiG pages 286-287 , the wyter “does not know everything going on” in its area (which can be large if its POW is large), but must be directed to search for things by the priest. It is linked to, and its magic can be directed by, the priest. Those who sacrifice MPs to it/him, must take a Passion for the group, and can communicate prayers to the wyter which can pass them on to the priest. So how much awareness and agency would YOU give a wyter in your game? Would you say that it doesn't know what is going on unless one of its group members prays to it? Or would you say that it does know what is going on in the line of sight of whatever item it is bound into? (This does raise the question of whether it has senses in the Middle World.) Or would you say that it only becomes aware of anything its priest directs it to pay attention to in its area, even if that is out of sight of its binding object? So the priest must essentially make a set of standing orders, or program the wyter? Would you say it would take independent action against a threat it was aware of (say a fire starting in its temple or guild building), or does it have to wait for the priest's direction? The only written example I recall is from Chris Gidlow's Citizens of the Lunar Empire, in which a wyter of an insula in Glamour (a water elemental) will put out fires in its building. What actions would it take to hold the group together? Is the simple fact of having sacrificed MPs to the wyter (and therefore taken a Passion for the group), all the wyter does to bind the group? Or does it somehow suppress disagreements and arguments? If so, how? Will the wyter take action on its own, or will it only take action as directed by its priest?

In a similar vein. I think time spent in a foreign land should give an opportunity lo learn a little of the language. It is not specified in the RQG rules. But when I had a Sartarite party in Balazar I gave them a seasonal check to learn a little Balazaring. Even without an instructor. Just a little, like 1D6 or 1D3. And I would do that first before they get to learn any local lore. Unless they are told the lore by a speaker of a language they understand. In the case of characters adventuring as Jo Mith's employees. It should be understood that the boss will tell them what he thinks they need to know to accomplish tasks, to not irritate the locals, etc.. so this is instruction, even though not formal study.

Or over the behavior of a rude relative on one side. All this can certainly he used to put in adventure hooks.

Seems reasonable, that is the terms of the marriage are agreed in advance by the clan rings. And it's not just financial haggling, but also includes other terms: which variety of marriage, year or life or... Nevertheless the ceremony is when the deal is closed. And also when it is officially announced to and witnessed by both the wider families and the general public. For role playing purposes I am interested in the details.

But how do the scorpion men get a demon horse to eat? They could eat scorpion men for all we know. There would have to be one impressive back story. So what is your back story?

So when are the marriage vows spoken? With the bride in this pose?

I am definitely not attempting to argue with your Christianity, and ask you to excuse me if any of my previous remarks make you feel uncomfortable. But I do want to point out that Christianity is not relevant to our shared fiction of Glorantha, except that our (player and GM) reactions to fictional situations will be heavily influenced by Christianity as well as other present day cultural things which post date Christianity. Glorantha is a fiction (as I beleve all of us will agree) and was conceived with a set of pre Christian and very pre modern concepts as its operating principles: As I understand it, these include what if-the commonly held beliefs of about 4 000 years ago are true in our fictional world? The earth is flat, the sky is a dome. The stars appear to be on that dome, and none of this is very far away. There are not 92 natural elements, but instead air, earth, and fire "runes"... with a couple of amendments. And most important, various magical and religious beliefs and paradigms of the bronze age are as real and effective in Glorantha as electric lights are for us in the real world. And myths are true, even though on the typical day they are (just?) stories told by the village elders, and even though there are different versions which are simultaneously true. Among those bronze age paradigms are multitheism and transactional religion mediated by priests. A personal relationship with any god is rare, that is a 16th century paradigm, and in the bronze age it was for prophets and heroes.. And I think you have at least as good a grasp of that shared fiction as I do. Probably better.

I know broo will resemble the creature they are born from. But do scorpionmen resemble the creature their queen ate alive? Or does its chaotic-tainted spirit just reside in a generic scorpion man body? The scorpion duck certainly triggers the imagination. Perhaps a new chaotic feature: triggers uncontrollable laughter, victim will roll on the floor. 😄

It has been decades since I skimmed the Golden Bough. But it made an impression on me, and in that light much of this can be explained by one observation and one pre-historical hypothesis: (1) that the human mind is very good at seeing patterns, and easily sees coincidences as patterns. There is an evolutionary explanation for this: It is a pattern that an unexplained movement in the leaves may be a big cat intending to ambush a hominid. Those who avoid that, live and reproduce. If it is occasionally not really a big cat, they still live and reproduce. Thus to see patterns that are not real in addition to those that are, was still an evolutionary advantage. Even though in the present day it tends to make one a conspiracy theorist. (2) that some time very early in prehistory, one of our ancestors developed a hypothesis: That things that move have spirits in them. This appeared to have great explanatory power: If you kill an animal it stops moving, and you have already decided that killing it let its spirit out. This hypothesis was extended to trees moved by wind and streams moved by gravity, thus we get belief in dryads and naiads. Even to the wind, can't you feel it moving? Shortly thereafter some humans grew attached to the idea that they could manipulate spirits, and shamanism developed. Near the beginning of history other people developed a belief in really big and powerful spirits, for instance a storm god, since you can see the clouds move and the hurricane arrive. It was a short jump to say that these are too powerful to control in the manner of a shaman. But they can be bribed by sacrifice, ceremony, and prayer, and a priest claims to do that. And often enough, as you observed above, the ceremony and sacrifice seem to work. This makes the priest a big man. Sometimes the ceremony is to ensure that the Nile flood arrives, and sure enough tbe flood does arrive after the sacrifice, for a thousand years. The priest is a god-king. When they don't work the priest spins a story. Who is some farmer to dispute that story, which was told by a learned man higher ranking in the community, even a god-king? Doubters had better keep their doubts to themselves.

My own experience does not support that. We did do the Six Seasons in Sartar campaign and the resultes were satisfactory. Now, after the adulthood initiation I declared that the PCs would get cult and occupational training each quarter for free because their clan is raising adult family, not doing for-profit education. I consider that reasonable GMing, estimating what has to happen in the social background. In their 2nd year of course they were not yet comparable to 21 year old starting characters, yet they were released into the wider world. (Company of the Dragon had not been released but for a game year plus, I ran a good substitute.) Employed at generous terms (that included spell teaching but not much money) they continued to develop. And by age 21 they were definitely more skilled and more powerful than 21 year old starting characters. Anyway. having played through it, it works. It might not if I were a GM who likes to kill Adventurers, but I am not. Though we have had a Resurrection or two between 1619 and 1627 ST.