Squaredeal Sten

Time to take away the punch bowl on this party! The book rule on fires appears reasonable. It will probably disappoint players who think they've found a great 20th century RW weapon to use in the Bronze Age. But if you want to rain on that particular parade, you might point out some nasty old RW reality: - A pint of olive oil or even of whiskey has a lot less energy in it (and a lot more water in it) than a pint of gasoline. Yes you might start a house fire with it, no you will not kill anyone in a melee round or two. It's like unattended candles or smoking in bed, not instant but just risky. - And there is no evidence in RQG that the Gloranthans have discovered distilling, let alone distilling gasoline from crude oil or even distilling alcohol. It's not a RW bronze age technology, it's iron age technology at earliest. And requires several tech advances to do well. (How do I know? My grandpa made a still coil during prohibition, told me how and what to be careful of; Wife has bootleggers in the family tree). Its earliest forms were not particularly efficient, so you wouldn't get pure alcohol. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillation#History. - 20th century Molotov cocktails themselves are easily over-rated. Actually a clever weapon of desperation, and not really likely to destroy a tank: the successes appear to have been because of their novelty, smoke sucked in by engine fans fooling the inexperienced crews into thinking they were on fire and so bailing out. Much smaller effective bursting radius than a grenade, so against personnel you're really throwing water balloons only with oil. A clay jar used in that manner will likely bounce off a man and break on the floor nearby. And the more flammable your liquid, the more dangerous it is to light if you use the rag- in- bottle type of ignition. If they are the white phosphorus ignition type, they are dangerous to carry (and WP is definitely not bronze age chemistry.). If Molotov cocktails were so great then why would the Soviets have gone on to invent shaped charge antitank grenades in WWII, which are also recognizable as weapons of desperation?

Yes. For example Yelmalio in accord with Cults of Prax. " Thus he insists that Initiates of the Adventuring Path accept a gift and take on a geas, as in the manner of Humakt. Only one gift and the concomitant number of geases are given at the Initiate level. " I expect this will persist in the to-be-produced RQG cults book, since it's pretty vital to any existing Yelmalio character.

It would probably be more fun if it were a Summon matrix, which any adventurer could use, rather than saying it could be used to bind an elemental when and if they could summon one, which would not be much use to a non-Earth cultist. Noting that unless they have the rune spell it's good for one use and then needs the spell cast into it again, it wouldn't seem to be over-powered.

The pawnshop is just a big house, so the repairs should be affordable. Note that there is a difference between working in stone, wood, and wattle-and-daub: There is no indication that masons are available any closer than Clearwine, and as someone else pointed out earlier there is one known carpenter in Apple Lane. What are most of the cottars' houses made of? That's what the local labor will know how to do. By the way where i live construction projects never seem to finish on time. That's just a thought. As far as a trip to Clearwine, there is a very recently published supplement 'The dregs of Clearwine" that has a mason in it and might interest you. But the wall around the town: That's a much bigger project, because the drawing in the GM material shows the buildings are very spaced out. Not a one year project at all in the circumstances. That area looks as though it might actually enclose a real [small] city: if the density of inhabitants was greatly increased it might be about half as large as a small German walled city I have been to, that survives from medieval times. Which, by the way, enclosed enough people to defend itself but they lived in multi story housing, close together. And you need to clarify with your players whether they are building a 4-foot garden wall or a real fortification. Make them do drawings! Or import a specialist engineer from.. where? Boldhome? or a Mostali? Who will be paid at a Noble rate. Then tell them they can't buy truckloads of concrete blocks from Home Depot, this is the bronze age. I don't recall an indication that anyone is running a brick kiln anywhere in Colymar territory. They might do adobe blocks, and dig a ditch. Not your little roadside ditch or an irrigation ditch, but a ditch deep enough and steep enough to be a serious obstacle itself, use the dug out dirt to make a berm at least twelve feet tall. Maybe put a palisade on top, or an adobe wall. Figure one man can dig a cubic meter of dirt in a day (which I understand was a Stalinist norm for the Gulag.) Transporting that dirt is extra. And the local work force is basically farmers, and not many of them, who need to spend most of their time farming or they and the players starve together. IMHO unless your players bring in a lot of labor, a real walled fortification that size is a project for generations. By the way it needs annual maintenance. Your specialist engineer might break that news to them after he charges them for the drawings. Now if they just want to fortify the Thane's house that would be a different proposition.

So, to GM the interactions with the Hiording and Lysang clans and a Birne's Squeeze trip... . People have already written something involving the Hiording, and an earlier Lysang adventure set was recently published. I never was able to find much written on Birne's Squeeze, drafted a couple of ideas. Interestingly the clan boundary more or less bisects the squeeze. Past history of Lysang will have them estranged from the Colymar tribe, maybe that's why there seems to be no cooperation vs. the bandits. If your Thane attempts to clear the whole Squeeze will the Lysang consider that an unwelcome intrusion? There is room for politics here, not just chasing bandits.

In my humble opinion Apple lane doesn't currently have enough population in town to defend walls if they were built. The strategic challenge for the town is to add population and economic base. Yes, clearing Birne's Squeeze and restoring trade would be important to that. Currently several of the cottars are refugees from recent bad events - seems reasonable - and there is no large scale map of the immediate area, so you are free to assume whatever your GM will allow. Seems to me Apple Lane had more population a few years ago and so has the land to absorb more now. The town needs an export to bring in cash. Of course the Uleria temple does that too, Right now the economic strength may be the eponymous apple orchards. So think about what you can do with that. If you go into the hard cider business you will have a lower class of customer than Clearwine - but the gods must love the poor because they made so many of them. Figure what is needed to support such business and where your markets might be. Infrastructure might include a potter, someone has to make amphorae for you to fill them. As for defense - a ditch and / or palisade would slow down charging tusk riders, but fortifications need to be defended. That takes you back to building up a town militia which takes you back to enough people. You might also consider what your relations with the local clan are - bringing in more refugees would have to be OK with them.

Feedback? I'm glad to get the benefit of your experience, as I want to do a similar function. I wouldn't have the group vote on it - that's too much like voting each other off the island.

I've been reading... Michael Hudson's book, "and forgive them their debts": In ancient Babylonian society, and its predecessor Tigris / Euphrates city states, land ownership was originally vested in the family or village. There was no provision for selling it, it was just inheritance and bloodline. That's your late neolithic and early bronze age situation. But then someone had a bright idea: Pay some poor and aging head of household to adopt you and name you heir. The adoptee contracted to support the adopter as a parent, in principle. Evidently with very specific written terms, according to tablets that survive today. Eventually the adoptee would inherit. A second method of obtaining private ownership of land outside of tradition was in form a lease in exchange for a loan, but the original owner of the land would seldom be able to redeem it because the loan rates were usurious, 33% or 50% annually. This would be easy to do in famine years, a take it or leave it situation. And the heirs would inherit ownership in form, but they also inherited the debt. The heirs became tenant farmers in actual fact, and the "lender" was entitled to the agricultural production of the land minus whatever he gave the tenants. If they weren't satisfied with that they could leave and become homeless. Thus alienation of the land for cash (or trade goods, grain in famine years) was originated. It took generations, but these two methods were how big private landholding originated, outside of the previous methods of hereditary high priesthood of a temple or of kingship. And the concentration of wealth begot more wealth, and tenant farming for rent, which weakened the society: Where previously the king raised his army and collected taxes from the land holding peasant families, there was a shortage of such peasant families, therefore weaker monarchies unable to defend their city-state, and the city state went down to invasion. It was a cycle. It became a virtuous act for kings to declare a cancellation of debts and reversion of land to the original families: a jubilee. When the private large landholders grew too powerful for the kings to do that, the city state went down. So, back to Glorantha: In principle your character wanting to obtain land could use one of those methods. But beware, the Babylonian societies of the bronze age didn't like them, they were cheating outside of the traditional social contract. And jubilees were popular. What will your Sartarite society think?

It traditionally was done by using unglazed clay pots, so water from the inside would constantly be percolating through and evaporating from the outside. Now in a Gloranthan context, if you could keep an air elemental at the task, you could keep a lot of air movement going and in principle get a pretty good chill in summer. Alternatively at high elevations in Sartar and elsewhere you seem to get real winter. Ice can be cut and stored in ice cellars.

What happens if you play it straight? The hippogriff riders being a non canon resource will make the battle slightly different. If the players think of it they could do aerial reconnaissance, and what they learn will depend on Scan and Battle skill rolls. Then they have to get that info back to the commander. Who may or may not change plans. The hippogriff riders can throw down javelins, or even rocks, which probably get a plus to damage from falling from a height; and cast spells, which they could have done on foot anyway. Then they and their mounts are subject to be hit with all kinds of magic from Disrupt on up. This is a battle after all, so large troop units. And these riders are clearly visible in the sky, unless they say they intend to fly nap of the earth. What happens when the Hippogriff rider is seen by 100 enemy, of whom 10 have Disrupt, and who cast it in the same round? Assume 50% target the mount, 50% the rider. What happens if someone on the ground casts Befuddle and succeeds? Now the hippogriff is essentially unguided to follow his or her own wishes, which may not be to participate in a battle. What happens if ... Darkwall (do they fly on instruments?) , Demoralize, Firearrow, Multimissile... now go though the list of rune spells. The possibilities!

Helmet beetle stats - Bestiary guard beetle stats say 6 point chitin. It doesn't give stats for helmet beetles. The beetle types in general take stats from guard beetles, though ham beetles are listed and given 2 point chitin. However most are larger than the helmet beetle description. Trollpack - it's actually "Helmet weevils", in a list of insects but no stats on that page: " HELMET WEEVIL These beetles are raised in heaps of large nuts in the Kingdom of Night. Their armor is tough enough to withstand a sword thrust, and the trolls use their shells for head plates. " It is not in the "industrial Insects" list. So - if halved, the 3 pts or equivalant to a composite helm? On the other hand if not halved, - many of the trolls with stats have heavier armor then 3, plenty of 6s= 7 with troll skin. Nor is there an indication of how to calculate ENC for beetle shell items.

How can they tell who is illuminated? divination?

Just reading Trollpack, and the question occurred to me: How tough is a helmet beetle shell helmet? How heavy? Or is it dependent on workmanship, that is its hit absorption could go anywhere from 2 to 6 depending on the crafter? RQG p. 235 helmet classes depend both on the material (leather or plate) and the coverage of the helmet. Material design Absorbs ENC Leather hood or hat 1 0,5 Leather cap 2 0.5 Plate composite helm 3 0.5 Plate open helm 4 1 Plate Closed helm 5 1 Plate Full helm 6 2

Entertainer on RQG p.66 has +30% for all of dance, sing, and play instrument. This seems to me to correspond to a video of a Turkish epic poem being performed that I saw a long time ago. The editorial that came with it included the opinion that Homeric poetry was originally performed the same way. In which case memory would indeed be an important item for the performer. Wish I could find a link for that video - it was probably pre- personal computer. Well here is a link to a similar performance, Manas: And a second link to a scholarly beckground video. If the model is Bronze Age - then writing poems down may not have occurred to anyone so early. As far as i know the available RW examples are early iron age, even though the original compositions were bronze age. This earliest fragment of Gilgamesh is from the Turkish museum, dated to about 800BC, and Bronze Age is evidently regarded as ending 1200Bc in the Near East.. And given the widespread illiteracy of the Gloranthan background, most poetry would be memorized and not in books. So Monty Lovering seems most reasonable to me.

I believe the elemental runes start at 60%, 40%, and 20%, you choose which rune get which %. Look at RQG page 45, Step 3 Rune Affinities, / elemental runes / Choosing your elemental runes, 2nd sentence of the first paragraph. Then you get to add in cultural rune bonuses. And maybe some from your family and individual history. For any runes besides those three you can gain them in play, when the GM says you can take 10% in Plant rune that's it.

That's a nice catalog of sub-adventure hooks. The decision for a party to attempt long distance trade is one thing, but you have listed the daily or seasonal obstacles and exercises of ingenuity which are the subject of play, in other words adventure hooks for each session. This is good advice, and thank you.

I love your story, Styopa! That's why the great big matrix approach is a dead end. Not because it won't work, but because we all have something better to do than make that world sized matrix. Like actually play and have a life. So make the players, not the GM, worry about whether a given trade route will actually pay. They can discover that step by step, while if we discuss it to a conclusion the GM can employ a page worth of simple rules and not build the world machine matrix. (Is the Mostali problem with fixing the world machine something similar?) Your story makes me think of the time back in about 1971 when I decided that with access to a computer that actually had a hard drive, I would write a brute-force redistricting program for a term project for a Poli Sci class. In Fortran IV, which might as well be ancient Sumerian cuneiform today. What I learned was that's not a workable approach. Which is actually valuable knowledge. I found another more conventional term project. Yes, in 1971 there were hard drives.

Skill roll - supplemented by observation. That is, if the player or party roleplays going there, then the GM who operates the world should decide what they may see and evaluate as valuable back home. With a bias toward spotting something and perhaps more things the more exotic the environment. On the other hand if the player wants to ask some other merchant who goes there to bring something back - that's a Lore roll to know about it. Iron sword? Rare and valuable anywhere, but more available and slightly less rare near dwarves who produce iron. So moving the iron sword from Pamltela to Peloria should not guarantee a price increase because it's not a particular export-import combination for the areas, iron is not more plentiful in either place. It is only well chosen imports that will get a price increase over distance. War dog or war horse - the horse's value is actually in RQG, the dog's will have to depend on the GM's imagination and concept of the area. But horses are rare (and therefore more valuable) in Pamaltela, so should be more expensive there, might be a well chosen export-import pair. My suggestion is +12.5% per season of travel plus a risk premium set by the GM. Clearwine - a unique product already defined as desirable and given a Sartar price in Chaosium canon material. My suggestion is +12.5% per season of travel plus a risk premium set by the GM, plus some additional arbitrary premium as a unique product, potentially a monopoly if you are the only merchant bringing it into a place where it has not been available before. However this last premium may evaporate when a second, third etc. importer appears. Coconut - Evaluate roll to recognize whether or not it will sell. if the Evaluate roll is a success and IF the GM conceives of it as actually a popular import (a well chosen export-import), then the GM will set a base price based on its status as a common foodstuff in the place of origin. +12.5% per season of travel plus a risk premium set by the GM, plus some additional arbitrary premium if the GM defines it as a unique product in his or her Glorantha. I have not seen a canon reference to coconuts. In all cases the risk premium is part risk of banditry and encounters with Walktapi, and must be set by the GM because only the GM produces Walktapi. It strikes me that we should have an evaluation of the difficulty of transport to an area, but that's not part of the market price formula: Transport by ship over the ocean is easier and faster than transport by manpacking the item overland over mountains: The ship moves more volume over more kilometers per man-day, so the GM must ensure that this overhead cost is reflected in the campaign. You have to pay and feed the crew, you have to own and maintain the ship. You can have a lot of capital tied up in a ship, they don't grow on trees unless you are very specialized Aldryami. It may be that a given item will sell well, but the potential price premium won't pay for the transport overhead cost. That's why people import spices from Asia to Europe, but don't import bricks over the same route even though they may be exotic bricks. If your players insist on importing bricks from Pamaltela to Peloria they should lose money. Perhaps some as ballast? OK, that's one solution to the logistical issue but it will limit quantity.

Oh, I had no problem roleplaying it. But the GM just couldn't stand it and found it a distraction from what he wanted to do, got angry. It wasn't a "solve though roleplaying" issue. I'm no longer in that campaign.

I have recently noticed that in Volume II of Guide to Glorantha, page 470, there is a table of "Important trade goods' by region (imports and exports). This is at the end of the "The oceans" chapter. It is at the level of "Dragon Pass", "Holy country", "Lunar Empire", "Teshnos", so is pretty macro. It is an inset in a larger section that has paragraphs discussing various trade goods. So it's not as if there is NO canon attention to trade. I applaud Ian_W's opening post, which does point to " Campaigns where merchanting is a thing ". He's not trying to force it on you if you don't like that in your campaign. But I tell you it's hard to run an Issaries in a hack and slash campaign. And I like the suggestion about skill rolls to discover tradeable goods. However I have misgivings about using rolls against Homeland Lore on both ends, because that would indicate that a really long distance trade route is almost impossible to set up. Why? How can the merchant from thousands of miles away have any Lore % for a place he has never been before? Wouldn't it make sense to rule that the more exotic the goods are, the easier it is to recognize something that will sell back home? Lore is a hard item to increase, you evidently have to be taught, though I'd think that every season you spend in a new environment you will learn a little more about it unless you have a very low INT. Why not run the recognition on the far and as an INT roll? Or as Jajagappa suggested a couple of months ago, test against Evaluate skill. Let's talk about this. My own thoughts in another thread don't contradict this approach, did not discuss the mechanics of identifying tradeable goods. Perhaps we can flesh out an adequate, un-complicated method for GMing trade. I also like Joerg's idea that " Finding routes and establishing them as trade routes are a form of Issaries quest, IMO"

Thinking about that- In the context of the Recent Unpleasantness (Lunar conquest through Dragonrise) many young women might reach initiation age with revenge on their minds. Conquering armies often commit atrocities, you've just come off the destruction of Whitewall, the Lunars got as far south as Nochet - I can see this as a situation likely to produce child soldiers in the Real World definition. Their first choice in those years just might be Babeester Gor. Then gods help you if you run into them. They've not been lectured on the law of war.

It's a matter of taste, I suppose: Each heroquest or even heroquest "station" as its own rune spell. It's hard to add to your stock of rune spells, as I understand it this generally happens when you sacrifice POW, which is slow to get and even slower when you are at the high levels who will survive heroquesting. So it seems to me this channels the character into being a specialist in one particular cult legend or even slice of legend, and steers them to repeating one quest. I had thought of my characters' goals as including expanding their cult lore in general, as part of their general goal to be a better _[insert cult] ___, as explained long ago by my first Runequest GM. This just runs counter to that. Is it a big objection? No. The book presents a menu of heroquesting rules for the GM to use, rather than saying this is the way you MUST do it. It's full of good ideas, and I appreciate the lessons of GMing experience being written out. As an example of the very good ideas, the 'cross over' rune spell makes a lot of sense and fills a general-use gap, and gives a specific mechanic that matches the general concept that I already accepted.

Sent my email reply Sept, 2d, Jajagappa.

I am up for that new game. Yes, PM me. guidance on character generation, or premade?

I like it. Don't feel comfortable with some of it, love many other pieces, but it is presented as a buffet you can choose from, and has copious references in its bibliography.