Squaredeal Sten

8 hours ago, jajagappa said:

The major holy days will differ:  longer duration (typically a day, which may or may not include the night before as that is part of the "day"), invocations that call forth the Godtime (and separate initiates from laity) within the sacred ground, re-enactment of ritual stories/myths, etc.  All of this "connects" the temple and worship ceremony into the broader "web" of the Godtime.  

I think this misses the immanence of deity - that understanding that the deity is present (though constrained and separate from the mortal) in the mundane world as well as the divine. Orlanth's breath blows through, Ernalda's fertility is right beneath you, etc.  Even regaining rune points is likely a feeling that the deity has entered you, personally, and that you are once again whole and one with your god.  

Good point about the immanence of Gloranthan deities.  This is something the GM would do well to briefly describe, to add flavor and background.  It seems much better than "y'all get yer rune points refilled.".  Check your Oratory, jajagappa!

And I can see that there is room for someone to publish a "Temple Events" supplement that includes descriptions of these, differentiating in similar poetic terms  between the four levels of weekly service, the seasonal holy day at which the initiates expect to gain rune points and maybe a POW roll,  describing the events of Sacred time, and a heroquest (which might be included in the Sacred time sequence or not.).  Maybe other levels if you think of them: For instance someone casts Sanctify on the road, I would consider that a different level of worship ceremony deserving a 5th description.

2 hours ago, Richard S. said:

Depends on which kind of Heroquest it is. Pretty much every worship ceremony can be considered a heroquest of sorts, .....

Yes, if we use that definition of heroquest then things change a lot.  But I had understood that the average worship ceremony on the average minor holy day is a pretty low risk event in which the average initiate does not expect to fight for his or her life. 

I do await the projected publication of official RQG heroquest material.  I'd like to see a model for this idea of a range of heroquest difficulty to match all adventurers.  It does seem to me that the initiate attending the usual worship need not expect to get a tremendous divine reward other than the replenishment of rune points. 

On 7/29/2020 at 12:42 PM, lordabdul said:

Is it even about summoning opponents that are heroquesting right now too, or does the cosmos have a bit of wiggle room, picking from people who were heroquesting a few days in the past or the future, because heroquesting in the God Time means that time gets all fuzzy anyway?

(Am I overthinking this? Yes, probably, but I'm the GM so it's my role to cover all the bases -- the world needs to be consistent and believable, and you never know what kind of crazy idea or theory the players will spin up)

Just my take on it, which means little, but -  Even if you consider that a lot of heroquesting activity takes place during Sacred Time, so there is a definite season for this sport, the odds still seem small.

Considering

-the relatively small population of Glorantha (millions, not billions of intelligent entities),

-and the small fraction of that who are both adults and likely to ever heroquest (basically rune levels, maybe 0.1% to 1%  of the population - but have we ever even got a straight answer about the proportion of initiates in the population?),

- and the extreme un-likelihood that most of these do so more than a couple of times in their lives, while many will never do do -  

I estimate that in a given year's Sacred Time  200-1000 individuals are going to have a leading part in a heroquest. And they will be distributed over all localities on two continents, all races, all cults, and all possible quests.  Your estimate will vary from mine.  I may page through Guide to Glorantha and sharpen up my total world population estimate.

My horseback estimate is that the chance of any particular opponent just happening to heroquest when you do seems pretty small.  Maybe YOU are heroquesting for the 2nd time this Sacred Time, but I expect that Gorzak the Uz Zorak Zoran rune lord who swings his mace left handed, and has a scar over his right eye and is missing the last joint of his right little finger, who you encountered last time on the hero plane, is not doing it at all this year, let alone Other World heroquesting..   

The chances of some troll heroquesting are naturally much better.  So if the matching spec is "troll heroquester" and not "Gorzak" then that is easier to fulfill.

I would expect that the only way to make these events coincide is that you are right, time means little in the God Time and what's a few days or a week or even a year?  Maybe you are encountering a troll who lived 100 years ago in the mundane world. 

I might also suspect that the incidents of repeatedly encountering the same individual are either reported widely and remembered  because they are exceptional anecdotes, or there is indeed some mystical bond that causes two heroquesters - and their choices to heroquest - to synchronize.  In which case we kiss free will goodbye and all odds are irrelevant, and we all get to transition from logic to mysticism or illumination. 

10 hours ago, ffilz said:

Have you seen the trade stuff done by Tao of D&D: http://tao-dnd.blogspot.com/ and http://taoswork.blogspot.com/ and apparently drawn together here: https://tao-dndwiki.blogspot.com/2018/04/trade-system.html

It would be cool to apply his methods to Glorantha if they make sense to folks. If they did, perhaps a bunch of folks could divvy up the task and make much shorter work of it than he did for Earth.

I looked at it.  He is accurate when he says  " It is extraordinarily complex and often overwhelms me. To explain this system to others would be difficult......  "       I didn't really want to start building a trade matrix in such detail as this: " This is then compared by the total number of times I have found 'gold' associated with places and geographical regions in my source material (an encyclopedia, examined page by page): the number of gold references being 236. "  And that's just one step out of seven.

Why not?  Because while I'm up for reading through the canon Gloranthan material, I don't want to have to do all that reading beginning with the two volumes of The Guide to Glorantha in detail and build that world-size matrix before I can even start play.  And I think very few other people will want to play along in that. 

Do you think it's simple enough  and yet has enough realistic feel,  to run on these four rules?

1. For every season’s travel, / travel to a neighboring region properly chosen goods should get an increase in price of 12.5% (one-eighth).  If you travel two seasons / two regions you get an increase of 25%, three gives 37.5%, and so on.

2. The GM should reward role-played effort to find specific goods that will be in demand. 

3. The GM should also allow further price increases for places that can only be reached with unusual danger.   This can only be scaled by the GM, who controls the riskiness of the campaign.

4. The GM should also reward monopolies and special access.

and then  let the players discover ( or generate by rectal extraction ) the particular regions' import and export goods,  (that's what I mean by properly chosen goods) with the GM making brief tables in the style of jajagappa's May 24, 2016 table in my third referenced link,  https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/4624-trade-and-markets-in-glorantha/    and then recording such a table for the GM's future reference.  Just list  the starting and ending region for the trip being played, and half a dozen of each region's major exports and major imports.

To me, the beauty of this is that the adventurers only operate between two areas at a time, so at any one time the clerical task of making the table is small:   Sartar and neighboring regions can fit on a page and most of that page doesn't have to be filled in until your adventurers go to each region.  And some of the work has already been thought through in the linked discussions.

I wouldn't object to someone writing a labor saving booklet of such tables, especially if they had a reasonable rationale.  But it wouldn't be necessary to play.  And on the other hand your Glorantha may vary.  Who is to say it's wrong when your Pamaltela exports chile peppers and mine exports cardamom instead?

7 hours ago, Rick Meints said:

Here are my thoughts on Joh Mith specifically, and Issaries merchant caravans in general.

While some care was taken to have Joh Mith's caravans make basic economic sense, Joh Mith, Zix Porub, Xigxag, and the rest of his crew were mostly written up to be interesting. ....Joh mainly buys and sells goods that are not common amongst the people he is dealing with. ..... He generally only buys at half price, so when he sells something he usually doubles his money. Of course that is BEFORE taking into account his skill in Bargaining, ...In short, most Issaries merchants like Joh plan on doubling their money before costs. ...  In general, I believe most merchant caravans work with that same basic "at least double your money" principle. Life on the merchant path is dangerous. ...  When I played an adventuring Issaries merchant back in the day I had several additional beneficial sources of trade goods. If we killed people/creatures I was the one who would sell off their armor and weapons and such, often beating the prices in the rulebook. The same went for any creatures we killed if they had an exotic pelt....

SIDE NOTE: A lot of the prices of certain goods and services in RuneQuest are intentionally high to help adventurers spend their loot. 

Thanks, Rick.    I suppose what I am after is a paradigm shift:  Rather than most of the merchant's profit being accounted for by his or her Bargaining skill, in long distance trade most should be accounted for by differences between regions in  in price levels and scarcity.  While Bargaining is the icing on the cake, not the cake itself.  Because Bargaining can be applied anywhere, so why will a sane merchant go on the road unless he can find a systematic difference between locations?

So what's my new paradigm? I am after getting past the idea of a single "standard price" and the merchant buying at half of it due to strong Bargaining.    Instead there should be regional price differences, and the merchant's Bargaining skill is on top of that.  I am for the list prices in the rules being Sartar prices, and applying time & distance = region differences. 

It doesn't really shake me up too much to know that the original campaign was done without carefully building a shadow economy, just by postulating that certain things were not produced in Balazar and other things were local exports and role playing it from there.  I will settle for building a GM's rule of thumb so GMs don't really have to detail a shadow economy more than the original GM of the campaign did.  I just want my rule of thumb to be compatible with the world-building already done, and also not to lead to foolish results like making money by bringing barley to Esrolia.

On 8/1/2020 at 7:36 AM, Puckohue said:

There's a lot of info on the Namolding clan and the Arfritha Vale in the Red Deer Saga (alliliate link). A lot of it diverges from canon but it's still definately worth looking at if you're interested in the area.

Thanks, there is a lot of material there.  It will take me some time to read through.

3 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

 and how much longer it takes to make them using pre-industrial techniques,

I suggest that 'pre-industrial" doesn't matter much.  Tattooing is done in prisons now, by people who have no access to modern tattooing machinery (electric needles) but do use those pre -industrial techniques.  So it seems to me that the craft of tattooing must not be extraordinarily hard.  The art, yes it takes talent to make good pictures on skin.  But a Movement rune will not require extraordinary art. 

3 hours ago, Richard S. said:

While in terms of day count this is true, in reality I believe it's been said that they're approximately the same, so a 16 year old on glorantha is about the same as a 16 year old here. I think the explanation was "longer days" or something like that.

I have never seen that discrepancy discussed.  Always just assumed that people grew up in time to be grown.

But if a Gloranthan year is the same as an earth year then the Dutch East India Company calculation based on 10 Gloranthan seasons instead of 13, comes to an 11.6% return per Gloranthan season.  Within 1% of what I got for Joh Mith on re-calculation.

14 hours ago, Joerg said:

I  think that many GMs shy away from their players' characters getting filthy rich, powerful and influential. So maybe loot isn't sufficient as a reward for risking their lives any more? More powerful magic or powerful political fall-out is always a draw, too. Push the management of those resources to the players who want them.

Probably true.  And Runequest itself shies away from it:  Since RQ2 Rune level characters are supposed to devote 90% of their time to the cult. Most rune priests get tied to a temple job.  But what's our long term goal as players?  To get our characters to be rune level.    This has always seemed to me to be a recipe for retiring successful characters.  Unless as you note the GM has the flexibility to plan the game events so they go more to politics and power, relationships and loyalties, less to munchkins knocking around the woods and ruins encountering whatever.

10 hours ago, Joerg said:

You are being conservative in your estimates, I believe, by not calculating in the occasional total loss of investment that traders in the not even that ancient world had to face. ..

The dutch spice trade was so lucrative that a single ship returning was enough to finance two ships sailing off ...

I  think that many GMs shy away from their players' characters getting filthy rich, powerful and influential. .... Push the management of those resources to the players who want them.

 

Joerg, you are probably right about my estimate being too conservative.  Not only because of the risk premium - how would you calculate the risk premium?  It is only partly compensated by my bullet point " The GM should also allow further price increases for places that can only be reached with unusual danger.", it is also conservative because because I have not proposed a standard risk premium for usual danger. 

So what do you think the chance is of the merchant taking a total loss and maybe having to pay ransom?  If you were invited to be a Name in a Nochet Lloyds, what would you want to insure Joh Mith's caravan agaisnt loss of cargo and ransom?  To insure a non-traveling merchant adventurer?  Those answers would imply a range for standard risk premium.  It's too bad we can't exchange Lunars between campaigns and go into the Gloranthan insurance business.

I do note that Joh Mith's caravan is pretty large and includes capable rune levels and a tough troll, so he seems to have protected himself pretty well against robbery.  And protected himself politically as well by working with the Lunars and for some of the royalty.  So his setup actually seems low risk to me, at least in a Gloranthan context where we expect at least one encounter per game session.

But there's a third reason my estimate above is too conservative: Reviewing my original step 2 calculation (which I originally did at about 3AM), I realize that Joh Mith needs to get the 50% annual return that I advocate over only four seasons, since as I wrote Dark Season is not usable caravan time.  So 50%/4= 12.5% (simple) return per season on the road, not 10%, and that is before risk premium.  Thanks for the opportunity to recheck my work.

GMs, please increase prices of well-selected  goods by at least 12.5% per season on the road, not 10%.. 

---- ----

About the Dutch spice trade - If I recall correctly the Dutch sailed half way around a bigger world than Glorantha, and allowed about an Earth year to do it.  Earth years are longer than Gloranthan years -  24% longer -  so figure it's effectively 6.5 Gloranthan seasons one way, so 13 seasons both ways.

Up until now I haven't been using compounding or exponents because the math will turn some folks off.  But that time frame begs for them, so -  if the  Dutch doubled their capital in 2 years, hell call it triple because they have overhead too, wages to pay and depreciation on a wooden ship -     1.083 to the 13th power is 3.00.  So the Dutch East India Company were getting a  return of 8.3% per Gloranthan season of transport, compounded.  Roughly, and with a big WAG for their wage and depreciation cost. 

(And the 17th century Dutch used "factories", permanent trading posts, which reduced the  dwell time for their ships and so increased the rate of return because the ships didn't have to stay anchored while the goods were sold.  This was a real non-Bronze-Age advance in commercial methods, one which helped them replace the Portuguese who sailed that route first.  They also did occasional piracy against the Portuguese, which is a method of competition not taught in business school but which does have Bronze Age and also Viking antecedents.)    

Is there a source of Issaries legends suitable for heroquesting as something other than Orlanth's sidekick?  I see the Lightbringers Quest in King of Sartar,and other stuff also provides material for Orlanth, but no such equivalant for Issaries.  What do the poor Issaries do at Sacred time?

14 hours ago, John Biles said:

Heroquesting is an important part of the most lucrative trading, as getting things from the Elder Races often requires it.  At least to make it work right.

So that's a way to link it to adventuring.

You've lost me.  Can you provide examples?

I may be getting off topic from DrGoth's  orginal thought, so started a new topic: 

Thoughts on GMing Gloranthan long distance trade:

I previously posted links I had found showing various GMs’ work on Gloranthan long distance trade. 

These references include two approaches: (1) considerable work on defining regional exports and imports, and on trade routes; (2) alternatively, work on a formula for applying bargaining & evaluate skills and distance to produce profits or losses.

Today I’d like to suggest approaching it from another direction, in two steps:

Given what’s written in the RQG rules and supplements, what scale of reward is appropriate for successful long distance trade? 

From this, derive the price differences necessary to make merchant trade pay and make sense in the game.

Basic information: 

We are told (p. 425 of RQG) in the calculation of annual income and standard of living, that in the course of ordinary business a merchant can expect a net 10% annual return on his stock of trade goods.  For a starting initiate with a stock valued at 500L and decent Bargaining skill, that stock should produce a Free standard of living. 

We are also told in general terms (p.425) that the (annual) return on long distance trade can be “sometimes”100% or more.  Long distance not defined, and overhead is referred to but not quantified.   I note that this return is before applying the annual bonuses and penalties for omens, raids, harvests (should harvests even count when you move between regions?), and effect of Bargaining or Evaluate skill rolls.

So STEP 1: What rate of return does the GM have to allow to make this come true on average for the adventuring merchant?

Let’s assume that :

●There are at most four caravaning seasons a year, because Dark Season is unusable due to weather and Sacred Time is more than likely occupied by worship and celebration.

●The true long distance merchant will not be alone, but instead be running a caravan, with several guards, and will need to make enough on his capital to support the guards and probably replace a pack beast or two: That’s his overhead.

My canon example of a long distance merchant is Joh Mith, running an annual  caravan from Jonstown   to and from Balazar.  (Griffin Mountain pp. 91-104+)  This caravan appears to be annual, requiring at least a season – plus  going out and a season-plus coming back and some dwell time in Balazar, more time restocking and selling the return cargo after return to Sartar.   Joh makes a profit both ways, going and coming.

What is Joh Mith’s overhead?

●He employs  16 assistants and/or guards and animal handlers (Griffin Mountain p.99),  who should be making a Free standard of living or better, see RQG p.423 for income for a Warrior = 60L/year.   Cost of those guards: 16x60= 960L/year, part of which will be their living on the road and part will be in goods or cash.

●Once in Balazar Joh also employs 18 (Griffin Mountain p.99)  seasonal Balazaring porters and guards who earn 1L/day per group  of six (p.93) , so 3L/day for 2 seasons (112 days) = 336L payroll but that’s RQ2 prices:  168L  converting to RQG (see p.432). 

● As I said, Joh needs to provide for replacing a couple of mules per trip, standard cost 35  L at Sartar prices (but 350L a mule in Balazar!?), total 70L at RQG prices.

Sum these three for Total Overhead:  1366L.

We are not told what Joh Mith’s capital in Trade Goods is, but  about 12 mules carry the caravan’s stuff.  An average mule pointed up out of the Bestiary is STR21, SIZ15, so can carry 18 Things, and depending on stage of the trip 4 to 9 mules carry trade goods while the rest carry provisions, tents, bedrolls, cooking gear, and other necessities.  So on average  7 Trade goods cargo mules.  That allows  126 Things for Trade Goods.  Let’s assume the heaviest cargo,  worked bronze goods at 20L a Thing, that implies a value of about  2520L.  That’s my minimum estimate for Joh’s capital, though we know he carries lighter luxury goods too.  Let’s say his actual trade goods capital is 4000L!

How much gross profit should Joh Mith be making, minimum, to continue this lifestyle?

Joh has a wife (included in his own standard of living, also Rune level) and since he is rune level even if he stayed home instead of caravaning he should be making at least a thane’s or priest’s level of income,  200L/year.  1366 overhead + 200 income = 1566.

CONCLUSION of Step One: Joh needs to take in at least a gross 1566L on his 4000L of capital, a 39% annual return.  Say 40% and deal in round numbers. 

In my opinion Joh Mith must really be making a higher return than just his class’s base standard of living because he needs an incentive to not stay home.  I advocate 50%, even before he makes his Bargaining skill roll.  Your Glorantha will vary.  This return doesn’t include what Joh Mith makes at the shop in Jonstown, or what his son and other family and retainers there cost to employ.

This is the suggested model for profit on trading from one region to an adjacent region, Sartar to Balazar.  Presumably trade with even more distant and/or more dangerous regions would come closer to the “long distance” 100% per year.   (Historical Real World non-bronze age example: Marco Polo and his family came back from China with a lot of gems sewn into their clothes.  But they were gone from Venice for about 20 years, and no one else they knew had made the trip.)  

STEP 2: How to apply this to the merchant  adventuring on a less-than-annual time scale, considering the usual one adventure per season?

50% return over the year of 5 seasons = 10% return per season without compounding.  At one “adventure” per season, roughly 10% gross return on capital per season in similar region to region trade.  So this is where I suggest starting as a standard price level increase on  Trade Goods, during an adventure, before applying Bargaining : 

● For every season’s travel, properly chosen goods should get an increase in price of 10%. 

● And “properly chosen” means goods that are not produced in or are in short supply in the destination region (such as trading bronze weapons into Prax), or at least novelties (pottery is made all over, but superior painted pottery of a foreign style can be a status symbol), or goods of superior quality and beauty.

 (Two examples:

     •Clothing is not rare in Sartar, but Esrolian fashions cost more there, which you will find in the price lists in RQG p.408.  An ordinary set of linen clothes will cost 2L.   I expect the 15L Esrolian dress costs less than 15L at the source in Esrolia, since the basic books are Sartar-centered.)  

     •Wine is produced in a lot of places but only Clearwine produces Clearwine.) 

“Properly chosen” doesn’t include taking wheat and barley to Esrolia or generic furs to Balazar, nor fish to the waterfront in Nochet, nor pine trees to the Aldryami. 

● The GM should reward role-played effort to find specific goods that will be in demand: In contrast to a generic “I buy 500 Lunars worth of trade goods”, you want to hear the player say “I buy spices and Esrolian fashions”.  Maybe you give feedback and tell the player what sold well.  And the second trip to an area, after the merchant has found out what sells well there and makes an effort to provide it, should pay off more than the first trip. 

●The GM should also allow further price increases for places that can only be reached with unusual danger. (For example, trading into Dorastor counts a lot.  Smuggling into the Lunar empire probably counts less.  Since the GM controls the scale of danger in the campaign, the GM is the only one who can scale this price differential.)

●The GM should also reward monopolies and special access, such as being the only person who trades with the Mostali in X place for bronze or gems, or the only person who trades with the Uz in Y place for spider silk or for a SIZ increasing potion unique to the Uz, because the trader has a special relationship.  It should take significant role play to achieve that special relationship: Coming from Nochet isn’t so special when trading there, though I will advocate for an augment to Evaluate if someone who grew up there is buying well known products of Nochet and makes an appropriate local knowledge roll.   Merely speaking Darktongue does not establish a special relationship with trolls.   But for a human to become  an elf friend should require considerable role play plus having done an unusual service for the Aldryami of a certain grove.   Once that is achieved that is a special relationship with those specific Aldryami, and the adventurer might find out that those Aldryami can make special plant products, also what they may want in return.  

 Your thoughts?

Two thoughts:

First: Alternative to bones of the gods: There is an adventure seed in one of the Heroquest supplements as I recall, in which a star falls from the sky (crack in the sky dome is visible), and where it hits is a very hot crater with scattered lumps of various  metals.  The adventurers are of course not the only folks who may pursue this find, and by the time the lumps of metal cool they are likely to have company .

Second:  Someone drafted up a monograph on trade in Glorantha, what various regions import and export.  As I recall Sartar is a metal exporter. Which makes sense as it has many places significant to the Gods War.  Lots of bronze bones or fragments thereof.    Of course this is NOT canon, but I recall it as consistent.   Let's search for it- 

OK, there has been more discussion of long distance trade in Glorantha than I thought.  Sometimes opposed by people who find it dull in-game, or think their players will find it dull  -   but if everyone finds it dull then why have so many people discussed and detailed it?

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/7804-quick-and-dirty-trade-rules/?tab=comments#comment-109960

http://www2u.biglobe.ne.jp/~BLUEMAGI/QAtrade.htm

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/4624-trade-and-markets-in-glorantha/

https://glorantha.steff.in/digests/GloranthaDigest/vol07/3564.html

On 7/28/2020 at 8:40 AM, D said:

...

has anyone got any thoughts on what sort of cooking device Gringle will use? I was thinking of a brick wood fired stove/

https://youtu.be/n6FK09iAFmQ

At most a  raised hearth to cook on.  Which is more comfortable than stooping down for campfire cooking.  And a wide hearth gives you a chance to put pots down near the fire, rather than just on the fire, and allows some prep area.

Yeah the original Gringle's sketch was more a dungeon than a workable living and commercial space. 

On 7/23/2020 at 3:12 AM, David Scott said:

It's part of the Cinsina tribal lands, and so the most references are in the Coming Storm, with some in Eleven Lights.

Thanks, those two heroquest books are a little gold mine of details for the area.  So, by legend  Larnste raised the land to put his stuff on;  there is an Orlanth temple there, the local clan is named and poor,  looks like a good place for a pilgrimage to fit the Movement rune. And in ?fire season? there are customary athletic races there.

There is room for an update, post-rebellion -  since presumably the Lunars are out, it should be safe to worship Orlanth there again. 

The only canon information I've found on Larnste's Table, is that it's on the map NW of Red bird, and N of Birne's Squeeze,  in the Thunder Hills, and is a flat topped hill or ridge.  Does anyone know of any other information, canon or not, that details it?

Now a year later I'm working on Red bird myself, and glad to see your discussion.   

On 8/16/2018 at 8:30 AM, MOB said:

"Chaosium has recruited renowned role playing author Robin Laws (Feng Shui, Hillfolk) to write an updated version of the RuneQuest supplement Pavis & Big Rubble. The first of two volumes, A Big Rubble, will release late in 2019, with Pavis planned for 2020."

https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/41146/robin-laws-pen-two-runequest-books

NB Robin's books are set some 7-10 years after the adventures described in RQ2's Pavis & Big Rubble, that culminate with The Cradle (1621). A lot has changed in that time.

 

Well it seems there was no such release in late 2019.  Is this still going to happen? 

On 11/7/2018 at 11:41 AM, PhilHibbs said:

I think that is "No, with a but". The headline is that only Aldryami can use Elf Bows, and if any non-Aldryami even touches one, it withers and dies. However, there are always exceptions, there are always ways to break the normal rules.

Regarding Manu's original question part 2, " does he receive an elf bow? ".

That elf bow exception that Phil Hibbs refers to is found in Cults of Prax, which is the latest reference since RQG's cults chapter omits Aldrya, and the Bestiary is pretty light on the cult.  Cults of Prax p.102, in the section about elf bows:  " Non-elves cannot do this as naturally as the wood-born elves. If such members wish such a bow they must spend a Rune point of permanent Power to do so, under the guidance of their local Tree Lord, and requiring four years total. "

So a player character human member of Aldrya with an elf bow is going to be considerably older than others, and pass the tests for lay membership and for initiation...    If your player just wants a more powerful bow it's easier to just get a composite bow and invest in spells.

The whole write-up in Cults of Prax makes it pretty plain that it will be hard and take a long time for humans to join (see my bold print emphasis below) , longer to become an initiate, longer after that to get an elf bow, and may  not be compatible with random adventuring with the rest of a party.    If the GM actually has the player do all these die rolls the chance of coming through character generation as such a human  is slim. 

First your human has to become a lay member: " Beastmen, dragonewts, ducks, and humans may sometimes join. They must pass the Gardeners’ examination, who will also make sure, through Divination, that the foreigner has no ill intents in mind or heart. The examination may be abstracted as POW + CHA divided by 2 X 5 on D100. CHA is always minus 10 for non-Aldryami races. Other races are not allowed to join.   "

"V. INITIATE MEMBERSHIP
A. REQUIREMENTS FOR INITIATION
Candidates for initiation ... must have been lay members for at least 2 years (for outsiders) and know all of the skills listed for lay members at least 50%, plus at least 1 point of all three spells. They also must prove themselves to the council of Elders. This is done by making a roll of POW + INT + CHA divided by 2 X 5 on D100. Note that non-Aldryami races must subtract 10 from their CHA for being from a foreign race. After initiation, though, they will always measure their CHA as if they were an elf, and will have the penalty when using CHA in relation to non-Aldryami.  "

AFTER this they can start to grow their elf bow.  " C. MUNDANE BENEFITS: ELF CULT   Initiates of the Elf Cult .....
Also, every elf receives his elf seed. This will be planted on his initiation day and, in one year, will be ready for harvesting and finishing to become a fabled Elf Bow. It will take another year to finish, and each new Initiate must dedicate one week each season to making it. In two full years it will be done. .... Non-elves cannot do this as naturally as the wood-born  elves. If such members wish such a bow they must spend a Rune point of permanent Power to do so, under the guidance of their  local Tree Lord, and requiring four years total. "

" B. CONTINUING REQUIREMENTS: ELF CULT
Initiates of the Elf Cult must take a working part in the elf society.  "

And what about your human's ambition to become rune level?  Your adventuring days in company with human murder hobos are pretty much over:   " Wood Lords must never eat meat (Aldryami never do, in any case) and must never kill except in defense of themselves and their woods. "

Re.  " How long do you usually see rituals taking? ":  

Familiar examples of rituals in the present day, real world include:

"Swearing in" people elected to office.  Required for Federal office in the U.S.,  elements are prescribed and there is also an overlay of generally accepted gestures and symbols, like swearing on a holy book, although the Constitution does not prescribe a holy book.  Practiced for other offices even in cases in which by law the person elected assumes the office regardless of ceremony.

The Mass, as practiced by  various Christian churches: Catholic, Orthodox, Coptic.  They each have their own drill, having developed differences in practice over the last 2000 years.    But in all cases the ceremony contains prescribed elements that are to be done in a prescribed sequence.

The same applies to communion or "the lord's supper" in Protestant and Catholic churches alike.  In the Protestant churches it stands alone but in the Catholic church it is part of the mass.  In both cases it is a ceremonial reenactment that can be done "properly"  or not, a ritual.

Baptism is another ritual that will probably be familiar to you.  Again the "proper" elements differ by religious tradition but each sect has their rules as to what makes it valid.  For instance sects differ as to whether it has to be done by a male, or involves full immersion.

"Saying grace' at the table is a ritual.

Crowning a king or queen is a ritual.  You may be able to find film of Queen Elizabeth being crowned.  Here, I have found it for you: 

So you can see by these examples that there is no set length for "a ritual".  Only different lengths  for the specific rituals, depending on the acts that are part of the ritual. 

In Runequest terms the length of the description of a ritual depends on the imagination of the GM or adventurer describing it, and the tolerance for boredom of other people in the game.  In my experience both are usually short.  The description of a day-long ritual does not need to take a day.  But if you have a description of a ritual that produces beautiful or striking mental pictures, I won't object when you use it.

I am interested to note that in the Bestiary entry under Dryad there is no mention of Dryads moving from material to spirit form and then reappearing.  It seems the description got even shorter as a change from RQ3.  I wonder whether that is an intentional change to Dryads, or just a result of editing down for space.

I do note that dryads also are referenced in the Spirits section of the Bestiary, which appears much later, also that they are are not listed in its Nymphs sub-section, making that speculation less probable.  Instead they seem to be a variety of Genius Loci.  Incidentally my opinion: There should at least have been a cross-reference from Dryads to this.  It's not good to make such important aspects of a creature into little detective mysteries that take deep immersion before the gamesmaster can find or know them.

On 11/10/2018 at 1:45 AM, Joerg said:

The 40 year old cherry tree right next to my house has spread its roots all around the house. I have found apparently new trees growing from its root systems as far as 20 meters away. We used to cut down most of these, but it has been a few years since I last pulled out these growths, and some of these are now of a size where I could splice twigs from the canopy or from other cherry varieties to it.

A warrior of wood made from that tree would have quite the reach...

 

The same is true of the ash trees that were planted when my house was built, about 40 years ago.  New ash trees try to come up all over,  not just next to the original tree, but also 60 feet away in the middle of the back yard.  The original trees are dying now (one broke in a recent storm, a big part hit my house and storage building) but these saplings keep coming up.

I would distinguish between 'a tree" and the whole root system that may include descendant trees.  And say a warror of Wood is one tree trunk, not a whole grove.

18 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

Short answer: Via propagation of "elf forests".

Longer answer: Trees still propagate in conventional manner, through seed and shoots.  A carefully tended and endowed new tree can eventually give rise to a new dryad.  You're right, that it takes much longer to generate a dryad from a tree than an elf from the womb of another elf or dryad (though I can't think, off hand, of how long the gestational period for a baby elf is).  But they form the stable core of Growing society, and thus the importance of maintaining them and, hopefully, expanding them again.

!i!

So any fairly old grove of trees should have a dryad?   Even in areas not very populated by Aldryami, such as most of Sartar?  I wonder what sort of careful tending and for how long, whether elfs can accelerate the process.  For  storyline purposes my answer would be maybe, yes, rune magic not listed, yes through rune megic, and bury the time period.

Seems to me there is considerable room to invent new Aldrya rune magic, just as there is considerable room to invent what else they can do with plants (arrow bushes etc.).