Squaredeal Sten

Now going south from Nochet to Rhigos, where the ruler is the Demivierge, and thinking about Jeff's recent Facebook posting about thinking of Gloranthan society as a network in which the cults are the nodes: I am puzzled about the Demivierge, because she does not match the image of an Ernaldan priestess ruler. How would she qualify as a priestess? I know there is a Rune spell fir transferring a pregnancy, but I don't think it is an Ernalda cult spell. If not ErnAlda. then what cult, and how does that fit into the Esrolian network? This seems to me to be important for adventurers visiting Rhigos. Or even passing near the city. Is there a write up of this that I could read? Or is it lost in an out of print fanzine?

Which trak3s us back to: So what accounts for the Esrolian women having "cultural weapon skills"? Not as cult skills, because that is a different step in character creation.

About negative modifiers: Ihave used them while GMing, and have also used fractional modifiers, that is "roll against half your skill". My difficulty with negatives is that low skill characters have NO chance of success, while with fraction al modifiers they have some chance. About splitting out specialty skills: If your game is going to have a great variety of those then that is a great idea. But if you use RQ's category modifiers you need to make it easy to reference those in play, else players may forget to use them.

That looks similar to commissars in early Soviet armies. That historical example implies to me that Esrolian armies will very very strongly emphasize following the agreed battle plan, and be less flexible when unexpected events happen. [I am not saying that Real World armies in general were very flexible before radio, nor that most Gloranthan armies would be much better, despite magic such as Wind Words.] Which makes the battle of Pennell Ford exceptional, in that in such a composite force, Harrek provided the flexibility to counter the unexpected. Superheroes will do that. A yet unwritten story should include what the Ernaldans did in that campaign.

So in Nochet / Esrolia that view is acted upon in a more consistent way, unlike Sartar where it is just a comment. - and the men seem to have absorbed that ideology. Even monarchical governments often tend to operate by consent of their populace. I don;t think there is anything wrong with that; It gives the region a different flavor, tells the players they are not in Kansas any more. Well back to the wonderful city of Oz Nochet. I am working on tomorrow night's adventure. Where Samastina will not be caught behind a curtain, is not Oz at all.

OK, the Nochet Adventurer's guide still contains "We keep the men working hard on the land, which keeps their minds away from war and conflict: a well-worked man is a happy man." but what was deleted is only significant if pointed out. NAG still contains, under How are Women Different, speaking of men: " What they are not is leaders: this has been proven a thousand times. They are either too warlike, too kind, or too mercurial at heart, their focus blurs, and they soon forget their charges. " But i do see that the more denigrating phraseology has been deleted or toned down.

But if we take away thise views, what is left to explain the matriarchal society?

As I understand it, it is that leadership by men is undesirable because men are more violent, less thoughtful vs. impulsive, and less long term thinkers. As I read 'Esrolia the Land of Ten Thousand goddesses" I perceive that from page 10, "What is the difference between women and men" which begins "Women are superior to men in every way. They are shoirt tempered and prone to violence, selfish and unable to keep promises, "... and ends ""What men are not is leaders..." and also the second paragraph of 'What makes us great* on page 9, and the second paragraph of " How do we live" on the same page,

Somewhst. yes. I suppose it boils down to "What is the extent to which the Esrolian characterationn of men in comparison to women has been internalized by the men and women who are not in the noble and priestly tiers of society?".

As I understand it the Esrolian matriarchal society prefers women in leadership positions because they are said to be less impulsive, more emotionally stable and long term thinkers. Men do the heavy work in the Vogarth Strong Man role. and fight in the "Ernalda's protector" role, while women are the brains. Also, as I understand it. both sexes get the same cultural weapons skills in character generation. This brings me to questions: Do Esrolian women participate in the militia system. the Irillo Hundreds? (if not, how and why do they get trained in those weapon skills?) If so, are their sex role expectations in the militia different? In my one instance of dealing with this in my own character generation, making an Esrolian male character who rolled participation in the battle of Pennel Ford, I decided that as a teenager he had been in a militia company whose captain was a woman. Indeed for distinguishing himself in battle (saving his captain who had been Befuddled) he was promoted to file leader and got the captain's recommendation, so after the war entered the Issaries cult as a caravan guard. He was very appreciative. The implication being that the officers are (or tend to be) women and the higher in rank you go. the closer you get to a glass ceiling, the higher proportion of women. Does this match your own vision. of Esrolia?

It is my impression that: 1) A lot of canon material originated as fan material in various fanzines. Most of which are out of print now, and cannot be reprinted due to original authors not being contact-able. So Glorantha has been a multi-person collaboration for decades, with wise editorial control.. 2) Of course it got Chaosium edits along the way, Including some significant revisions. For instance "the west" was once presented as semi medieval, not so now in canon. You who were participating when I had lost touch with Glorantha from the mid 1980s to 2018, please correct my possible error. Anyway, Jonstown Compendium material ought not to suffer from the out-of-print problem.

On the other hand, another SPOILER Alert: Some of that is the way you played Six Seasons. At least one if the Black Stzg rune spells will go a long way to keeping the Six Seasons player characters alive at the end (6th season), and the clan wyter is only going to be killed by bad luck or bad player management, otherwise he is merely sidelined for most of Company of the Dragon. - END SPOLIER- When I ran it, The default assumption was that the player characters would take at least one Black Stag rune point, and shortly thereafter would have the opportunity to initiate into the gods' cults. taking more rune points. I pro rated their acquisition of skills and magic over the next year. My argument is that the clan invests in these new adults. And Gordangar. foreseeing the conflict ahead (it's in the 6S book) accelerates their training.

When I ran Black Spear, among the long term effects I took from it was that my Adventurers had seen Argrath at his worst and most vulnerable. This was after they had seen him in Company of the Dragon, where he is super competent, alert, and friendly. So if was interesting to see how the players themselves reacted to Argrath when he rose to Prince. They have his confidence, he doesn't doubt their loyalty because if they had meant him harm they had their chance to do harm in Prax, and instead they healed him. He owes them from Black Spear. But they never are so tactless as to remind Argrath of when they saw him strung out. He is a questgiver. Anyway, to summarize, Argrath is capable of playing many roles. Capable of being all things to all men, though not simultaneously. So when you ask how Argrath acts, ordinarily you might think about what he wants from the people he is dealing with.

I hope the Nochet Adventurer's Huide is doing really well. Because I would like it in hard copy. The parts on different approaches to the city for the newcomer are going to get intensive use next week and I am going to print pieces out to help my GMing flow. The only criticism I have so far is that the street names would be easier to find on the maps if they were in a larger font. Perhaps a major street map with a lot of the other layers suppressed more?

Congratulations!

Mere exposure to and observstion of Chaos would not, but since the original question was about Lunars, then yes I would expect their Chaos and Moon rune alignments to increase as they become better Lunars. When it/ they go(es) beyond 90% the GM should be requiring rolls against it and the Adventurer would be less and less under the Player's control. This is the same mechanic as for other alignments. It's in the RQiG book. Whether the GM interprets that as insanity is an individual choice. I suppose a little gibbering and a lot of obsession would help some stories. Catatonia not so much, unless the purpose is to remove an over powered character from play. Perhaps make a random roll to choose somethig from the psychological association's diagnostic manual? https://www.yourbookstop.com/product/diagnostic-and-statistical-manual-of-mental-disorders-text-revision-dsm-5-tr-5th-edition-dsm-5-tr/?gclid=CjwKCAiAyp-sBhBSEiwAWWzTns3k5ck_n_A6cKvd5TzaBzcxdxkljrqMB2rcMI_uvrz5ZWbTRg-RHRoCizoQAvD_BwE But at $50 for a used copy.... I would rather spend my money on Chaosium's books. Your budget may vary.

As I understand CoC, achieving 100% insanity. disables the character. But the Gloranthan stuff we have been shown doesn't work that way: The high ranking Lunars are functional despite uncounted exposures to Chaos. Indeed they accumulate more magic (and more ruthlessness), with no sign of being disabled. Perhaps Illumination protects them from being disabled and only the non illuminates are at risk. But Glorantha seems to indicate a different mechanic associated with exposure to Chaos. The Storm Bulls seek it out and get more fanatical against it, only getting more skilled at fighting it.

All good thoughts. And all are oriented toward building an elvish family history table. Or to the clan history defining question sequence used on Heroquest. Thae opportunity to do that fir this elf has passed because the Elf played the first session last night. (But I did provide a magic item to further her mission. in lieu of a human's heirloom.) However your advice is still useful snd sppreciated. I might work on an elvish family history table and/or Q&A sequencr for the future. I encourage you to do that yourself too since you outline a good approach to it and have very flexible ideas.

This elf left the woods to make contact with other elf woods. So she is on a mission - not a rootless elf. The elven hope is thst this will further the great reforestation plan. So that background is already covered. This elf is not exactly from Tarndisi's Grove, but from the other scattered and less secure woods near the Quivin Mountains. She will join up with the other adventurers in Boldhome, as we start a trader campaign.

I said OK to a player running a Green Elf Adventurer. Now this brought us to a discussion o family history. It seems to me that most or all of the RQiG family history will not be applicable to elves. Why? First of all, because almost all elves live very separated from the society and events of the other major races. The Saratarite vs. Lunar war events will not matter much to the forests. The elves will have a history of conflict with the Uz, most of which is irrelevant to he RQiG pages 29-45 events. The Lunars' Moonburn will have been traumatic - but the Dorastor forests that burned will not have many elvish survivors so they are not relevant to rolling up a new elf.. Second, because elves are very long-lived. A 31 year old elf in the 1625 ST time frame will have parents who are 50 to 200 years old, and grandparents who live now or lived 100-400 years ago. it seems to me that hatreds and loyalties for eves will be pretty long lived and stable. So the question is not whether your elf hates and fears Uz. They ALL hate and fear Uz. This is a racial dislike, not an individual issue. Similarly, family heirlooms will be rare and improbable. That newly generated 21 year old elf won't inherit grandpa's magic thing, because grandpa is probably still alive and using it himself. Your thoughts?

Since the thread started in the Six Seasons context, In The Vale the adulthood initiation is also an initiation to the Black Stag. So they will end up with 1 Rune Point from Black Stag. But immediately after that they get their cult initiation, so that is when I gave mine their cult skills and spirit magic too. ... and the Playing Inexperienced Adventurers box on p.25 of RQiG just says skip their Step 7 personal Skill bonuses. So the way I did it - which is just my way, not compulsory for anyone else - At the start, Session Zero, i gave my Six Seasons players two pages of Notes on Character Generation, and part of this says:: You are all going to start as inexperienced, meaning age 16 not age 21. The year of our first campaign events is 1618-19, not 1625. When and if your characters get to 1625 we will then merge into the current RQG timeline, and I expect that everyone will be experienced with 25 seasons of “cult and occupational “ skill checks plus whatever you get from adventures. And cults to initiate in will be chosen after the youth adventures. No Eurmali, no Chaos cults. ..... steps... 6. Cult; Don’t do this. You are not yet adult, cults don’t take children. Children are not taught magic. 7. Personal skill bonuses: Don’t do this, this will be achieved in your 5 years of growing up before age 21. And I also gave everyone a blank skills calculations spreadsheet, because at the later steps they will get more skill%, so it's important to have at hand a record of when and how they got their char gen skill %. And then of course we played through the initiation chapter. == Anyway, I do see that giving them all their starting 5 points of spirit magic and 3 points of major-cu;t rune magic may seem a little overpowered for starting youth characters. I looked ahead at their future challenges and didn't want them to die before the six seasons ended, so I gave those to them. But an alternate way of doing these things would be to dribble them out in the next three seasons or so. They are very likely to need their Black Stag rune spell(s) by the end of the sixth season.

In their homes, or immediately adjacent to their homes. Enough to live on until the next harvest. Incidentally i have my doubts about whether the grain tithe applies to carrots, cabbages, other garden vegetables, many of which do not have a specific harvest date but are picked during a several-months-long ripening period. The administrative burden involved in collecting a tithe on household production of tomatoes or okra would be impossible. Here are some images of traditional granaries: : https://www.shutterstock.com/search/the-ancient-granary https://www.shutterstock.com/search/traditional-granary?cr=c&ds_ag=FF%3DDSA+-+All+Pages_AU%3DProspecting&ds_agid=58700003504592959&ds_cid=71700000027388020&ds_eid=700000001400310&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAvJarBhA1EiwAGgZl0IcDBsPVBUyQTmrke3qxDdG5j4Sm2bWJRW2V0DauxTAvOSTWAzfTExoC_60QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds&kw=&pl=PPC_GOO_US_DSA-590706984705&utm_campaign=CO%3DUS_LG%3DEN_BU%3DIMG_AD%3DDSA_TS%3Dlggeneric_RG%3DAMER_AB%3DACQ_CH%3DSEM_OG%3DCONV_PB%3DGoogle&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=GOOGLE

The same 1% to 3% makes sense for tolls at city gates too. And highway tolls - well, if they are imposed at several locations that can kill trade altogether, unless they are low. I mean a clack or two per beast of burden. if they are higher and frequent then long distance trade will get eaten up by tolls charged by every clan and village. IMG that is what happened when the Prince of Sartar's authority collapsed: Deer Folk and bandits and clans all tapped the traders, and the restoration of princely authority involved making the clans stop it and also regulating city gate tolls. So- Argrath as quest-giver to my players' characters... but only after the Issaries player came to a boil as tolls on the Heortland Road ate up his business. (It only took one game session of that to get him royally pisseed off, so he lobbied Argrath...) . With effort and authority from Argratn, the Adventurers restored trade into the Holy Country as well as within Sartar.

No, the agricultural tithe (20% of the harvest, and presumably of the increase in herds too) has no provision for calculating cost of production, and is not collected in money, so it is not even a gross receipts tax. if it were collected when grain is marketed it would be a gross receipts tax. But that would miss taking a percentage of the farmers' own consumption. More important, it bears no resemblance to the real world income tax you may pay now.. It is simple, collected when the harvest is harvested, requires no record keeping, allows no deductions. And it is on one specific type if gross receipts, too: it obviously does not apply to merchants, crafters, and other non ag occupations. It is not a tax on incomes in general, it is a tax on the harvest and only the harvest. This is not to say that the farmers are not being tapped for the grain that makes the world go round. But 'income tax' has a specific meaning for the rest of us, no matter what meaning you may assign it when talking to yourself.

Other taxes.... Tolls upon entering cities. Amounts vary with your game. Perhaps tolls on roads: a more polite variant of highway robbery. This is usually suppressed on Sartar royal roads when you have a strong Prince, but elsewhere and elsewhen??? Import duties at ports, amount depending on the port, IMG. Market fees if you are selling. That is canon, see Cults of Prax. But amounts are not canon. Ground rent if you have a house in a city. Land is essentially leased, as I understand it. This is essentially equivalent to a property tax. The 20% tithe on agriculture is the big " tax", and in a mostly agricultural society that raises almost 20% of Gross National Product, which is definitely not a post Bronze Age concept. There is no income tax, because it is not practical in a mostly illiterate society. Again, not a Bronze Age idea. However for grins I made an Orlanthi Form 1040, and will attach it. Mostly for players who quibble over tithes, though also to amuse myself. Your cult tithes apply to non ag income, at least for initiates and above. But this is not a "tax". It is not enforced by a king who might be deceived, only by your gods who are aware of everything their initiates do (see Divination) (see Spirits of Retribution). As I understand it (YGMV), kings and Lunar governors may collect a tax as a percentage of property. Probably with your clan as the collector, subject to royal displeasure. However people and clans may attempt to hide property from tax collectors. But that is not a normal thing in time of peace for non subject peoples. It is a historical background thing, not in the RQiG rulebook. You can use it to oppress your players, as used in [spoiler] Six Seasons. Orlanthi form 1040 draft 1.pdf