Squaredeal Sten

In your opinion, would every sizeable body of water have its own naiad? Have its own water cult? I ask because I am working on an adventure at Zatarn Lake. I'm considering what cult a godtalker in a fishing village there, might belong to. I get the impression that Oslir just belongs to Oslir, Zola Fel just belongs to Zola Fel, etc.. The lake is a necessary part of the story but the godtallker is, so far, incidental. Nevertheless because the lake is said to periodically produce monsters, the fishermen would want some magical protection.

I recall a rule of thumb somewhere in RQG, to the effect that interspecies CHA effects are at -10. I cant reference that. Perhaps Tusk Riders' effective CHA could be set at +10 for relations with other Tusk Riders. On the other hand Tusk Rides don't really need CHA boost for magic, because with Bloody Tusk rune magic they can bind spirits into body parts. Sort of like Thanatari but different. But a Tusk Rider PC?? That's real dedication to playing the bad guys. Too many gratuitous torture sessions for my taste.

What type of game? That makes a difference. A strategic to operational level board game? The Holy Country campaigns of and against the Lunars, on both sides of Chloralinthor Bay. Why? It is both well known among Gloranthaphiles, there is enough Chaisium and fan material to flesh it out, and also does not duplicate the previous Sartar centered material. An individual to clan level electronic game like KODP? Prax for sure. There is a lot of game potential in nomadism. The mechanics would be different from KODP, movement and map location would mean something. And the place is well known enough to get plenty of players.

On the other hand if tbe Healer has the sense to attend associated cult worship, and has a good Worship skill, there are many opportunities to regain rune points. Ernalda has minor services weekly. So IMHO your CA should only be tapped out in case of war - well maybe a big raid -or plague, or when on an adventure away from friendly settled areas. Or. Of course. bad dice luck.

If the creation of the Palace of Black glass has any RW analog, it would be a remnant volcanic core such as this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Shiprock.snodgrass3.jpg But not solid - instead with corridors, rooms, windows. Lodril was forced to make them.... maybe lava tubes? Maybe at that point the divine separated from the mundane? As for the tarpit that is not a volcanic thing. Other tarpits are part of petroleum bearing sedimerntary formations. So it's magic. I would think that the depth of the tar is undefined except by the GM, within reason. If it were only a couple of feet deep the Uz would have dug it out. So the plateau would not be a truncated volcano. Instead it would be crustal rock with faults through which the volcano or volcanoes (magma) rose. .

Please delete. I'm having keyboard trouble tonight.

But what qualifies night as a hell?

I don't know who originated the Gloranthan Styx. But the question would seem to be: How much does the Gloranthan underworld match Greek, Roman, or Italian Renaissance underworlds? Note that they don't match each other in detail. For example the Greek version is said to have five rivers.

Pity them! You can only imagine what it was Iike here in San Antonio Texas in Feb 2021. (Snow and sub zero temperatures, the electric and gas service collapsed.) The last big snow had been in 1985.

The literature indicates multiple hells. Think of "a Lunar hell" which one Saratarite tribal king was sent to. It's not clear to me whether this is a hell made by the Red Goddess, or discovered by, or simply one favorite among many possibilities, which is favored for Lunar use. So instead of hell changing, perhaps there is just variety enough to cover all your fears and most of your dislikes.

IMHO a group of players knowledgeable of Glorantha is likely to include someone who will suggest getting a shaman, or a divination, or a Summon Ancestor, or other magical investigation tools. These are legitimate paths in a Gloranthan murder mystery and you ought to anticipate them to stay consistent with the background. If you have a shaman in the party it's a chance to do shaman stuff, the player will be disappointed if that path is closed off. AND. you could do a neat spirit world scene. If you don't want it solved too quickly then you can take Scotty's suggestion that the spirit is traumatized and speaks unclearly, in oracular fashion. But also anticipate that your players may miss other clues, and the magical path may actually be your last chance to bring the adventure to a successful conclusion. A resurrection should be the players' last choice: the magic should come at a high price, as French Desperate Windchild has pointed out, it may not work, and you can place the mutilation obstacle and/ or the "used all my rune points" obstacle.

That is a very good game mechanics question. The RQiG book doesn't give specific rules for humsn sacrifice. But there is a partial example in Griffin Mountain. It's RQ2 material but - p.191 of the Classics version shows an example but that is done at an established holy spot. not a random place that needs sanctifying. Doing a human sacrifice at this place casts a rune spell - but it's not Sanctify - using a fraction of the victim's POW. The next step of the ceremony rewards the priest's sac of (what might be either POW or RP in RQiG) with a return based on victims' PoW. What do I make of this? What is relevant to the current question is that the sacrifice does NOT power a Sanctify. So although the example needs an update to RQiG for clarity, it appears to me to indicate that (1) you can't power your Sanctify with the sacrifice, but instead the priest needs to start the magical sequence. (2) the rewards come to the priest on the back end. Whether it is the location or the ceremony that makes that return possible is not clear. But I think it is primarily the location because if it's not then why journey to this out of the way spot? (Except of course that this makes the adventure's plot work.) Yet the text does indicate a ceremony is necessary, so you can't just knife someone and run off and get a magical benefit. Pending an authoritative answer from Chaosium, Our Gloranthas May Vary.

That is a genius move! You have a great career ahead of you as a Thanatari! And thanks for pointing that spell out, as it is new and was not in the old Cult Compendium. I have learned something. I do note that spells gained by Consume Mind may still be limited by the caster's CHA. So for maximum versatility in magic plus magic points, Create Head may still also be desirable. On the other hand RQiG consolidates the old RQ2 [Cult Compendium page 300] Create Head spells into one [RBOM page 300] , essentially the old Create Major Head spell, which requires a week long ceremony (same as the old Create major head, but now you can't do the Minor head quickie, and you always need a cult holy day.) This change may result in slowing the pursuit of knowledge by the Doomed One. So some strategic judgment may be necessary.

I have given an example of a Heartlands Thanatari skimming prisoners. Will it really change everything if I name a Heartlands source of prisoners? While rebels may be found anywhere, their fates are all similar. Don't challenge Moonson!

Raus might. Indeed have such friends on the Lunar side. But Sartarite Rudolf son of Adolf, no, unlikely. And if he was marked off given to the bat cult then what? His friends can't be any more annoyed by the Thanatari fate than by the bat annihilation. He was an unlucky rebel, no ransom, too bad.

Perhaps the symbolism relates to Xiola Umbar's generosity. To an Uz giving food would be the most attractive act of generosity, thus the food pot. The other Uz gods do not seem to especially embody that virtue. Of course the healing aspect counts too, perhaps more for us humans than for the Uz.

Here is a grim scenario seed counter to that. Feel free to use it in your game: A Thanatar cultist achieves a job taking charge of prisoner of war slaves and moving them to Peloria. This is a perfectly respectable Lunar government position achieved through good connections. Or maybe a contractor position which goes to the lowest bidder, and this is why he bids low. Lunar logistics may vary in your Glorantha. He or she skims off the magically powerful ones. There is always a little shrinkage in a coffle. Maybe some escape, yes that's what he writes down. Maybe some were rebels sentenced to be crucified or fed to the Crimson Bat, and he just reports that this was done. Who audits that? Maybe they died of natural causes or disease or wounds suffered when they were captured. Maybe he reports that one was disobedient and was flogged to death, it's necessary in enslaving people, maintains discipline you know. As long as 90% arrive in Peloria, or he can attribute 80% arriving to bad luck, who will inquire deeply into this? His chest of heads may get heavier as the trip north goes on. What's that? Just some souvenirs.

So what is Krarshti policy? Are chaotic folks even capable of executing a long term policy?

We have speculated about what is necessary to create a NEW holy spot (shrine or temple) in other threads. ( besides a congregation and permission of the cult.) The hypotheses that appeal most to me include a heroquest with that goal, Or a big ceremony using magic that is not in the Red Book, not combat oriented but known to the cults - it is just outside the scope of most adventures and a matterfor High Priests. But a GM might reveal it. Oh yes and you need a wyter at the time you get your congregation together. And of course there are old holy spots where a god did something significant like eating lunch (Larnste's Table), or perhaps a Hero's tomb for a hero cult, or where the hero is associated with a god. Or possession of a relic could be sufficient. This really appeals to me for a mobile shrine. In the end this would be a nice subject for the forthcoming GM book. Meanwhile it is a fit subject for a Jonstown Compendium piece if you have an appropriate revelation. As for a lot more suitable relics wandering around - I suspect they would be most desired by large rich temples which would stop them from wandering. And they won't grow on trees. Unless they are Aldryami relics of course. But your Glorantha might be big enough to have one or two little known. newly discovered relics, enough to power some adventures. Look around in the corners of your mind where they might be hidden and forgotten. What I wonder about is what permanently sanctified the run down Issaries shrine in Apple Lane, which appears to be a big boulder with graffiti. I sure would like an explanation of that canon edge case.

But a shrine is a permanently sanctified place. Not "anywhere". Now if the shaman wants to cast Sanctify they can worship there, but it's not permanent.

Jex, I am curious: How are you going to scale this demon summoning sorcery? I notice that your bespoke demon probably qualifies as a small demon, with 12 POW. What if your sorceror wants to summon a large demon, one with POW = armor protection that no weapon is likely to penetrate until the thing can be provoked into using its magic points, or some MP draining magic overcomes its POW?

I am in favor of the bespoke demon. Let your adventure have a unique twist, let the demon give your adventurer a unique twist. One possibility is that one man's demon is another man's Elemental or cult spirit. If they are on the other side they are demons. Broyan gets offed and his friends say it was a Lunar demon. The Lunars say it was an Elemental(Lune) that drove his friends insane and in a berserk rage one of them killed Broyan. Are demons incomplete creatures? That looks reasonable. They can be more malign that way. You don't have to make a back story about their abused childhoods, or leave a possibility that they will decide to join Chalana Arroy like a certain broo. In any case they appear to manifest as very embodied spirits.

Well OK that's sort of a charitable foundation. Which doesn't prevent it also being a front for the empire.

It came up in my campaign too, with two adventurers. And I asked questions here in the forum too, because I hadn't studied the sorcery rules chapter enough to understand let alone to play it. I don't think a Sorcerous Potential skill is needed, it would just add complexity. RAW, INT is your sorcerous potential. The rules as written are hard enough. For an adventurer to learn sorcery in play they will have to take many seasons off to study, preferably with a mentor in Jonstown as David Scott described. One rune and one technique won't cut it, either. To be competitive magic users they need more, and then they need to learn or research specific spells. Lots of skill increases are needed. They will study each skill in accord with the general learning rules. Mastering each rune and each technique is a separate course. Researching from scratch is just too hard and long, they need that mentor and library. Since that amounts to retiring the character for an extended period, they have not followed up on it. The characters have responsibilities.

As I read the RQiG section on rune points, Sanctify plus a holy day is the minimum you need to regain RP. A shrine or temple lets you regain without having to cast Sanctify, and gives you a bonus on the roll. As I read the RQiG section on temples, a temple or shrine is usable to regain rune points even without a congregation present. The congregation is necessary to establish a temple, and only implicitly to keep it a temple. (I also deduce that making a temple additionally needs a wyter, and probably requires a heroquest, discussed in an older thread. At least a big and long ceremony such as the consecration of the Temple of the Reaching Moon. Maybe the forthcoming GM book will clarify this. The RQiG book seems oriented toward newer characters and starting a campaign, while establishing a temple would be for much more experienced Adventurers with enough game history to gather a congregation and to politic with a High Priest .) Though it is not specified how long it stays a temple if the congregation is absent, I judge that is at least a season because of the seasonal holy day function for regaining Rune Points. YGMV. The example of the baboons and Hender's Ruin would indicate to me that temple status degrades VERY slowly. So, back to the original mobile temple topic: while the Mobile Orlanth temple may just be a cart and the priest's Sanctify, I can easily believe that with a temple's holy relic in the cart and a congregation, it can at least be a shrine. And discussion of the Praxian tribes in another thread, argues that the Praxian clans must also have portable shrines, because otherwise the nomads are going to have a hard time.