Squaredeal Sten

i don't know how it is in your Glorantha. But in mine, Argrath starts recruiting Esvulari wizards for his magical units in 1627ST after he is invited to be Prince of Sartar. That is how he intends to develop magical parity or superiority over the Lunars. How does that square with the coming canon view?

OK that indicates the Kultain are still their own tribe in the post Dragonrise period, and Twotop is or was their center. Maybe they lost a clan to Olontongi but that's in the past. And Kultain would be a Sartar tribe not a Heortland tribe. That simplifies the immediate politics to intra 'Kultain. How about that library they were guardians of? It would appear to be in Whitewall territory.

I don't think an Issaries priest would be BOUND to Friedman's point of view. Maybe vulnerable to it, which is not the same. The essence of Issaries as an archetype is doing trade in which both parties bargain and come out ahead, that is they are satisfied with the trade. With a margin of profit for Issaries. But his mythic trading does not contain an element of compulsion, go back and look at Cults of Prax.

Just one minor point on which I ask for clarification or correction: P.109 of the RQiG rules says in its paragraphs on the Wilmskirk confederation, that the Kultain were broken up and became part of the Olontongi as of the base date, 1625 ST. (Olontongi are listed under both Wilmskirk and Whitewall on that page.) So is Twotop the Olontongio tribal center? Are the Olontongi Volsaxi tribe, or their own tribe? Twotop as an Olontongi tribal center seems improbable from the discussion of Whitewalll, but i may have misunderstood.. If Twotop is no longer a tribal center, that will have implications for my campaign outline, only significant because i am working with tribal politics as part of a scenario. I currently lean in the direction of it having suffered in the Lunar retreat, and Twotop would merely be the center of the Red Hand clan, with a potentially valuable location near the trade road into Heortland.

Real World is the answer. Magic is not real but animals, humans, and goods were all sacrificed. We know how that worked / works. POW sacrifice is magic so not real. If the question ia about POW sacrifice then it is self contradictory. Let's go back to RQ questions.

The "cult magics" part seems very reasonable. And that and the GM's evaluation of voluntariness seems to me to be sufficient to stop a POW farm. Except, as you say, under special circumstances that basically exclude Adventurers. I'm pretty sure that the x2 and x3 POW loss part is neither necessary nor supported in the rules. But what is left is sufficient, and gets us past rolling against suddenly created passions. Now what's needed is to make that a brief official statement in Q&A.

In the discussion above we discussed various degrees of voluntariness vs. compulsion applied to donation of POW. Examples included (1) Slavery in which POW is extorted by threat of violence, or possibly deprivation (as coercion of a slave may include deprivation of food or of movement). This includes prisoners of war or captured criminals, as well as the possibility that Nick's trollkin examples are slaves. This situation is morally objectionable to most of us, though I pount out it is not morally objectionable to chaotic cults. (2) Destitution in which economic incentives operate. The destitute party responds to poverty, possibly including hunger and an increased likelihood of childrens' death (per RQiG income effects in sacred time rolls). If Nick's trollkin are "wild" they would be in this category. Nick points out that this is not morally objectionable to people who follow Milton Friedman, who consider all market interactions just. (3) Cult membership in a cult whose demands go beyond the standards in RQiG's Cults chapter. This implies a threat of a spirit of retribution if the member refuses POW donation, but also the incentives of cult membership, which may be both social and magical advantages as well as the ideal of following your god's archetype. We haven't really discussed the moral status of extraordinary cult demands, and there are no book examples of cults which make such demands beyond "standard". But I do consider them possible within the rules. (4) The original bargaining situation which set off Nick's question, in which bandit prisoners' situation began as compulsion but now bargaining with offers and counter offers introduces a voluntary element and moral ambiguity. I see how French Desperate Windchild"s proposed passion rolls may deal with the voluntary POW donation rule for category (1), but not the other categories. Would category (2) require the GM to make a Hate Being Hungry passion? Would category (3) imply a roll vs. Loyalty to Cult passion? Would category (4) imply opposed rolls between a Fear of Death passion and a Love of Freedom passion, and if so what % would you set those passions at? I estimate that anyone who practices banditry must have a fear of death at less than 100%, but there is no book example of considering this a passion nor of considering love of freedom a passion at all. Or do we fall back on "No one can make you do anything" and deny the reality of compulsion? While we are at it let's note that the proposed passion rolls do not make Nick's POW farm uneconomic. They just reduce its yield while providing an easy calculation of the proportion of slaves who will be flogged, or of the destitute who will be hungry.

They are essentially very durable asbestos gloves. Beneficial to smiths and other adherents of Gustbran. Described in Weapons & Equipment book. Of corse their provenance may bother some people.

It is my understanding that Gloranthan religion is firmly transactional in accord with Real World bronze age models. The habitual and scheduled MP sacrifice in worship is dues paid to the god so that the god can and will provide Rune magic on a much less frequent and maybe irregular basis. But expectations do include Earth God fertility for the fields and herds, Storm God rain - things that are provided annually through priests via listed rune spells. So I don't agree that the RQ rules lack these things. It just doesn't usually occur during worship in game. But there is nothing stopping a GM from having the fields fertilized in game for atmosphere. A model for this is in Six Seasons in Sartar. The plowing and harvest ceremonies. The priests as intermediaries thing is also bronze age though it has modern day remnants. Where RQiG differs is in opening some of this up to mere initiates.

At priest level you can do enchantments, and leading Worship ceremonies has POW gain payoff. So the presiding priest is essentially channeling MPs to the god. Taking a payoff in both personal POW gain and his or her ex officio ability to Enchant. Yes Enchant requires additional investment of POW, which does not change the principle. The enchanted item is a repository of small-p power that the priest can direct, either selling it for cash benefits, using it personally, trading it, or using it for the community. Benefit to the community should also be benefit to the individual if we take the community involvement part of RQG seriously and GM that way. The adventurer who casts Bless Crops gets gratitude from the community. So does the adventurer who casts Lightning and kills the Walktapus that was destroying the crops. Among other ways the individual benefits are by being allocated hides of land which translate to income. And using personal magic fior cult business is implicit in the book where we are told that at Rune level the adventurer must devote 90% of time to cult business. That really is compulsory by the book, even though the GM has to enact it. So we see both positive and negative incentives from the cult. The negatives are the compulsory part, sure. But the positive also act powerfully.

But will children know how to sacrifice POW? You may have to use trollkin adults, 200 bolgs and a roast rabbit. This reduces the profitability from "unheard of" to merely "unmatched in our current economic climate". How do I buy into this venture?

You really are channeling Milton Friedman! However they won't get 5-6 POW gain rolls a year unless they succeed with POW vs POW in a stress situation, and at 5 POW this is unlikely. One per year at Sacrwd Time is a better estimate. This reduces the productivity but does not change the general principle.

If you think about it. It is a standard thing for cults to require a proportion of members' magic points and ( on an irregular basis) a proportion of their POW. That's what is going on when members sacrifice MPs on holy days. That's what is going on when initiates sacrifice POW , though they do get rune points for it. And implicitly that is what is going on when clans or tribes or temples or military units have wyters to whom POW is sacrificed. The only issue, which Nick has pointed out, is: Under what circumstances do these requirements become so unreasonable as to be forbidden by the rules as written? But every cult is a gods POW farm. And maybe the high priest's POW farm.

For what it's worth - very recently in my campaign via Zoom. the adventurers captured five would be bandits. Who, unusually for bandits, cried ransom. They were members of a nearby clan who acknowledged them. Not having that amount of cash (see W&E about market size) the clan offered cattle. Not wanting to drive a large herd of cattle, the party bargained too. The compromise solution was the cash on hand plus two pair of walktapus hide gloves, plus POW for a high-end enchanted item. The five bandits were required to contribute 1 POW each. Yes there are degrees of "voluntary".

I like the idea. Certainly dryads should have individuality, because they are the dominant NPCs of their Grove or their part of a forest. There is plenty of room to expand on dryads just as there is room to expand on elves / Aldryami. (Pending an Elfpack.) So, following your lead: A redwood dryad would have an impressive SIZ and CON, and a very long term view? A cypress dryad would have a water rune affinity, a high CON, and control animals like alligators, fish, frogs? A fig tree dryad, now? Will dryads of cultivated trees be friendlier to humans? Shall we postulate that all cultivated trees originally came from Aldryami, as some kind of gift or trade item? Or perhaps a symbiosis, in which an orchard keeper prepares the Earth and takes the role that elves do in the wild woods, and should perhaps contract with elves for the development of a fruit tree dryad? Should orchard keepars try to join the cult of Aldrya? This opens an avenue for human NPC development.

Yes. Someone publshed the speculation that they were modeled on living individuals. It makes sense if the Emperor wanted to take his army with him.

I was thinking about (1) Secrets of Heroquesting, (2) the notes on heroquesting in ALM's Company of the Dragon, and (3) the fragments we see from the Chaosiumcon playtest. I have not read the Mongoose one, so that makes three and a fraction in my updated count. The discussion above does point out that there is a spectrum of possible benefits from a successful heroquest: While the Original Poster asked about the spectacular world altering variety such as killing Orlanth and causing the Windstop, Jeff has answered about the more accessible personal benefits to player character level questers. I suppose that getting a good harvest or obtaining a wyter or making peace should be ranked in the middle. But those should also be accessible in-game.

This implies the establishment of a raccoon spirit cult. An appropriate sacrifice to the raccoon spirit would be a day's garbage. How do i know this? Someone has been raiding our large brown 80-gallon city-owned garbage can. Which now has a concrete block on top of the lid. Evidently the method is to climb atop the blue recycle can (which used to be next to it) and pry up the lid from that position. Anyway, such a sacrifice would evidently be pleasing to such a recipient.

And i have recently read an article indicating, on the basis of archaeological evidence, that at least some of them ended up as the Philistines. Whose physical culture indicates a blending of several Mediterranean peoples with the previous inhabitants o the land. However the article also speculates that they may have originally been more pirates than migrating tribes.

It doesn't match the Bestiary description of an Earth Elemental. I could believe a Jolanti. Whatever it is, a combination of Slow and an Earth Elemental should grind it down. Maybe stacked Lightning would take it down too. Engaging it with a knife does not appeal, any more than grappling with a gorp does.

In Pavis for Lightbringers, and maybe - Humakt well at least a shrine. in Sun County for Yelmalio, major temple.. For Storm Bull and Waha try tribes' mobile temples. Else at the block for a najor SB temple. Eiritha at the paps? Or closer- acvording to Borderlands a sufficient collection of temples is to be found at Hiorn Gate west of Ronegarth. Detail to be hsndled by the G M as needed.. Chalana Arroy at the paps too. For the Red Goddess it is dependent on date.

I have been thinking about this for a few days and I feel called on to object that (1) "math" is not the source of most of the complexity in Runequest rules, (2) and also that it is not in children's interest to dumb things down by removing what is really simple math. I am afraid that removal would give a message that "math is too much for you" and removes a practical and personal use which ( if retained ) may subtly encourage them to not be innumerate. Occasionally my work in marketing research gave me reason to believe that innumeracy disadvantages people almost as often as illiteracy.

That last is a detail I had never seen before in reports of the terracotta army. I had thought the armor was molded into the clay figure. Thanks fir the report!

As I understand it, and my understanding is not authoritative nor complete: 1. Yes, and there are different levels of heroquest ranging from in- world to actually entering the godtime. The in world is the LARP while your adventurer will run considerably more risk in the hero plane, and actually entering the godtime is for either heroes or fools. 2. Yes as I understand it you can change the story. Or at least (and more typically) affect which is the currently dominant story. (See my opinion in 5 below.) Each quest deepens or strengthens the path the quester takes. The Lunar heroquest that "killed" Orlanth and Ernalda deleted them at least temporarily (triggering the Windstop and Great Winter) and they were brought back by counter questing. 3. The seven mothers heroquested to revive a "dead" goddess, killed before Time. Who was thereore not part of the Great Compromise and quested in her turn: one time was to get the Crimson Bat. I can't enumerate other times, not being an authority on Sedenya. 4. I believe that is so. The implications remind me of certain time travel story tropes popular in the 1950s and 60s. What if you go back in time and kill your own grandfather before he reaches puberty? Logical contradictions abound. 5. I am pretty sure that knowing the story is not the only limit. For one thing: Different versions of a story can be equally true simultaneously. Also there is a lot more power in the higher level quests than in the in world variety. I don't know how to express that power difference. But any heroquest is a step into myth. And at the GM's option, how big a step it is may vary unexpectedly. There are at least two and a fraction sets of heroquesting rules right now. Plus Greg Stafford's notes in Arcane Lore. Including reports of the playtest at Chaosium Con. They are useful and overlap but as you know there is currently no final authoritative set. So we are free to interpret as we please as long as we don't cross the line of suspended disbelief. I am just another Glorantha fan and GM and none of what I have written is official nor does it bind Chaosium . I am not trying to rock the boat, just trying to navigate.

Thanks, last week i named a clan chief & storm voice myself. But am still grateful for yours. Mine had fairly pacific reactions when the party met bandits north of Whitewall, caught five who cried ransom and were Olontongi. A deal was cut - the five each had to put in a point of POW to an enchanted item. Plus cash and two pair of Walktapus hide gloves. The party in question has proceeded to Smithstone - but will go through Whitewall again on the way back.