Squaredeal Sten

Which reminds me, is that pronouced notch-it or is it pronounced no-chit?

How about Imarja? Is she saved for the Nochet supplement?

Which is consistent with the lower incidence of temples to cults other than the Big Two in Sartar. I admit I don't know how cults like Humakt keep a temple, perhaps that's why there are not many. Where in Sartar do you find a Humakt temple? Barntar should have initiates all over the place, every plowman - but gets along with shrines in Ernalda temples, so where's the expense? If you want to find hidden riches, look at the Barntar cult! Come to think of it, has anyone written or run an adventure in which the Barntar cult plays a prominent role? They just lie low and rake in the cash! Issaries is common but low expense and its temples are self funding: The priests are expected to be merchants and don't draw a salary, the temples are markets and charge a stall fee. And Issaries does commercial banking,takes deposits, makes loans, issues letters of credit. (Very bronze age by the way, the Sumerian temples started that stuff.) Presumably letters of credit are discounted somewhat or carry fees, and they must also earn interest lending the float. As you may know, "money of account" increases the money supply beyond the specie in circulation, and an adequate total money supply is necessary for trade and the economy to flourish, so an Issaries temple not only runs a profit but produces positive externalities. Do well by doing good, that's the Issaries way. However if war disrupts trade, all else equal there will be an economic contraction, so bear down on that Harmony rune. Lhankor Mhy temples are rare and also self funding, and sell services - to the extent that initiates evidently live there free. Uleria temples are obviously self funding, and recession-proof. I wonder why they seem to be rare. Chalana Arroy temples / hospitals are also self funding. (How many poor physicians have you met in the real world? And ours can't even resurrect people dead six days). This is also a recession-proof business, and war proof too. Lots of shrines, but those won't support a priest.

MJ, no, I never worked for IRS. My wife did briefly before I met her, and my sister in law retired from IRS. Neither of them had input into the Orlanthi form. I'm glad you enjoyed my parody. It was meant to be functional, though: Try it out! And of course for the illiterate 95% of Gloranthan society, your local Lhankor Mhy already recorded your crops and will stand by to assist you with your tithe reporting needs at the standard price for writing letters. But perhaps I can design a short form for those who are not adventurers and are lay members of cults.

Here is my first draft of Orlanthi form 1040. Your assistance in proofreading is requested. This covers only income and tithing. Tax obligations for Orlanthi in the Lunar Empire must be calcuated separately. 😀 Orlanthi Form 1040 draft 1 For year _____________________ Name _______ ___________________ □Son/□Daughter of ________________ Tribe, City ____________________ Clan or House __________ 1Check boxes for Cults; check boxes you are initiate or higher level in:, check only one box per line 1A Orlanth □ Initiate □ God-Talker□ Rune priest/Lord□ 1B Ernalda □ Initiate □ God-Talker□ Rune priest/Lord□ 1C. Issaries Initiate □ Rune priest/Lord□ 2. Other cults: 2A. ______________□ Initiate □ God-Talker□ Rune priest/Lord□ 2B. _____________ □ Initiate □ God-Talker□ Rune priest/Lord□ 2C. _____________ □ Initiate □ God-Talker□ Rune priest/Lord□ 3. Agricultural income after applying effects of Omens, Weather, Raids etc. ___________ 4. Multiply line 3 by 20% _______________ 5. Subtract line 4 from line 3 and enter result here __________________ 6 Multiply line 4 by ½ and enter in spaces 6A and 6B 6A _________ 6B _________ 7 Professional income from trades, skills other than agriculture after applying effects of Omens, Weather, Raids etc. ___________ 8. Adventuriing income: A. Cash _________________ B. Trinkets _______________ C. Weapons and armor captured and retained ________ D. Magic items captures and retained ___________ E. Miscellaneous: Potions, scrolls etc. _____________ 9. Total lines 7 through 8E: Total Non-Ag Employment income; ________________ 10. Ransoms you paid ____________ 11. Ransoms you received ___________ 12. Net Ransom income: Subtract line 10 from line from line 11: ____________________ 13. Net Income: Total lines 5, 9 and 12: ____________________ Tithe calculation: 14. Total number of Initiate boxes checked (add 1 if you are an Issaries rune level) ______ 15. Total number of God-Talker boxes checked _____ 16. Total number of Rune priest/Lord boxes checked on lines 1A,1B, 2 A through C ______ 17. If line 16 is greater than 0, Multiply line 13 by 90% else enter 0 _______ 18 Subtract line 17 from line 13 _______ 19. If line 16 is greater than 1 subtract 1 from line 16 and enter the result here, else enter 0 _____ 20. If line 19 is greater than 0 multiply 10% times line 18 and enter the result here, else enter 0 _____ 21. Add lines 17 and 19 _____________ 22. Subtract line 21 from line 13 ___________ 23. if line 15 is greater than 0, multiply line 21 by 50% and enter the result here, else enter 0 ________ 24. Subtract line 23 from line 21 ____________ 25. Multiply line 14 times 10% _________ 26, Multiply line 25 by line 24 ________ 27. Total Tithe: Total lines 4, 21,23, and 26 _______. PAY this to your temple(s). 28. Subtract line 27 from line 13: this is your character’s net income after tithing ______

While drafting Orlanthi form 1040, it occurred to me that skill increases and spells learned are not titheable. Only physical income is titheable.

I realize that due to mis-interpreting the RQG shield rules, we have been playing with an informal house rule; The GM has let a medium shield automatically take the damage to a left arm or chest. A mis-interpretation possibly based on a hasty reading of the shields / missile weapons section and the phalanx section of the combat rules. But it seems a reasonable thought- possibly good to add to the current rules? What do you think?

1. Trolls in the Argan Argar cult would buy bronze spearheads. It's probably hard to find a troll redsmith, so they would buy repair services too. A redsmith near a troll area might have a steady stream of troll customers. That may not help your Issaries merchant but would be a nice touch in a campaign. Trolls would buy matrices and spell trading for many non-Darkness rune spells. How about flight? Wouldn't a flying troll be unexpected and effective? 4. Giants could strip mine, where otherwise people like dwarves would tunnel. Strip mining a whole seam of bronze could be a major industrial service. As for the chaotic giants issue, what's more chaotic than strip mining?

IMHO Professional income? Yes. From the "after adventure" section of RQG, that looks clear. Land income? Yes. Nor does your cult take 10% of the net after those, because isn't your other cult equal to Orlanth's? Surely you as a good supporter will say yes and pay 10% of the gross income. Dissenters will be visited by a Spirit of Reprisal.. Income paid by the cult: Yes, it's just like in our real world social security is taxable at least up to a point even though it is paid by the government. Adventuring? Yes of course, as a player your income is basically adventuring income. Gifts? Yes because that may not be distinguishable from adventuring income. You adventure, do well, the chieftain or the duke 'gives' you weapons, an arm ring.... lots of non cash income there. The United States is interested in your cash income but that's not a practical rule for a predominantly non-cash economy as in Glorantha. After all "bronze age' implies a time before and when coinage was invented. Ransom you receive, yes. Ransom you pay, no, that's a loss. It can be deducted from your income for the year. See line 12, Gloranthan Revenue Service form 1040. The real issue is whether tithes are paid annually, or seasonally. Clearly the great need in this game is for someone to draw up a Gloranthan form 1040 and accompanying instructions.

Absolutely knowing that there is at least one troll area full of giant insects and giant flowers. What sort of honey do giant bees make? Probably pretty good stuff, and in giant quantities. Beeswax is also a very useful commodity. And it's a lot safer to get the trolls to raid the hive than for some human to try it. I'd like to suggest: - Bludgeon matrices! Trolls ought to produce a lot of these since they favor maces and mauls. Every Issaries should want one for his staff. - matrices for troll cult -specific magics. And this looks like a rich area for Spell Trading too! - Spellcasting as a service. Some troll cult rune spells may be unique. The RQ3 Trollpack is full of things. That royal jelly from giant bees gave a SIZ increase of 1 (given a week of inactivity after the dose) , with the possibility that second, third etc doses would have an effect decreasing as SIZ approached species maximum. It was also given a value of 5000 lunars and up per dose. RQ3 Trollpack also had a list of troll beverages. But the majority of these could have undesirable effects on humans, requiring magical healing. And, yes, one of them is an industrial acid. Your friendly local Argan Argar trader would probably be ready to suggest items of interest.

There is at least a fragment of an answer in one of the sidebars in the RQ2 book Cults of Prax, page 66. This indicates that Steve Perrin and Greg Stafford made up at least part of a list of medicinal herbs: " We made for a campsite at Horngate. I had little left to trade, and so Norayeep and I searched for healing plants as we approached, hoping in that way to earn enough to trade for food. The first day was poor, and all I found were roots and seeds, out of season. Norayeep found some sticky Liverleaves, useful in absorbing systemic poison from the body. The next day, I found a Jang flower, and Norayeep found some Fingersticks, both useful against wounds, and she also found some Inipris leaves, which fight the Wasting Disease. On the third day we gathered more Jang flowers, some Hairflowers useful against the Shakes, and some rare Silver Strands, which combat Soul Waste. Then we turned and hurried north to the oasis hoping to use these before the week was up. " Now it would be interesting to know whether there are any other documents using these, (a google search for "Jang, Fingerstick, Inipris" turns up nothing but Cults of Prax, while searching for two terms brings up other uses of the phrase finger stick and a minor celebrity named Jang.) It would also be interesting to discuss what effect these or other herbs might have in game terms, and under what conditions. Would you treat them as only effective when an adventurer has an appropriate healing skill, do they give a +% bonus to that skill, or how else would you apply them? PP.68-29 of Cults of Prax, in the Chalana Arroy section, has a procedure that depends on terrain for number of searches, then rolling for WHAT your find cures, then for "potency" by part of plant and season which also gives the % chance of success. At a quick reading there seems no link to skills other than finding the herbs and magically refining them. It seems to me that if the "potency' of a plant cures that many points (from 1D4 to 1D12) of damage then for wounds this stuff looks like it can be better than a rune spell, which seems to me to be over-powered for an herbal tea or a poultice. So I am NOT sure that it will be treated that same way now, 30+ years later, in the much desired and much awaited RQG cults book. Perhaps if you have a good suggestion now it may affect the content, who knows? Or it may not be addressed at all in that book. If I were making it up from scratch, I would use one of these: Have an herb give a % bonus to Treat Wounds, treat disease, or treat poison skill. Or it might have a Potency against the Potency of a poison or a disease, leading to a roll on the resistance table against the poison's or disease's potency / POW of a disease spirit. Or perhaps these might be a bonus to the CON or POW, whatever characteristic is being attacked by a disease or a poison, when the victim does a resistance roll. But those might only appeal to me. What's your opinion?

In my mind the 'check" system is easy to read as combat oriented. But how do you improve skills such as Worship or Farming that are not about acts that you can complete in a few melee rounds? And if you really have gods who provide miracles / rune spells, why would you routinely NOT do worship in a holy site and with a sacrifice? It makes a lot of sense to me to allow the player characters to improve the skills that they use when they use them in the way Gloranthan people do. So, IMHO not cheaty if it's done when it's important to the ongoing story. That's a check mark in these skills when they successfully perform the skill on important occasions (not routine occasions, not every minor holy day) during game play, not just deadly occasions but when doing game events relevant to what the PC is pursuing.. And under reasonable conditions. Just as you give players to their combat skill checks when they hit and have sense to come up on the enemy's unshielded side, so succeed - for Worship sacrificing something to the god (and getting that bonus) is a reasonable plan and true to the Gloranthan background.

Good points, the first (throwing items in the lake or marsh) is historical indeed. And if the GM wants to throw in some atmosphere both will be good. .

I'd like to offer a possible answer; The side jobs are seasonal. And a lot of the other things discussed are seasonal too. In Sea Season and Fire Season and Earth Season the agricultural field work will be done. The people whose main jobs are farming work will be planting, hoeing, and harvesting in the daytime. In the night they sit around the fire and tell legends while making those baskets etc. The herders will be abroad with their herds, distance from the village depending on the security situation. When the weather turns bad in Dark Season and Storm Season, that's when more of the indoor ("side") jobs are done, the non-specialists doing arrow making etc.. The herds will be pulled in, and in Storm Season will feed on hay or stubble, close to the village. This is also when the people will be practicing the dances for Sacred Time. People with non-agricultural main jobs will do them in most seasons: The redsmith, the scribe, the potter, the full time arrow maker or weaver. In a city this may be associated with a temple if your Glorantha follows the early Middle Eastern pattern. In an outlying village, we should expect fewer specialists (probably no redsmith or scribe), but also more lower-quality and seasonal part time home production.

The drawback in sacrificing many Power points at once is that your player character will have a lower Power, and so be less likely to win the next spirit combat etc. the good part is that in case of a success [check power] you have a greater chance of increasing your power After Adventure. So it depends on how hot your dice are - but remember dead PCs gain no power.

Would someone please enlighten me about what the Battle skill is and does? I don't see an explanation in the RQG rules. I might try telling the GM at the beginning of a fight that I want to roll my battle skill to see what the enemy's plan is. Other than that I have no idea what this can do for my character.

If the barbecue is already lit, then skewer the chunks of meat and proceed to cook shish-kabob. Smaller chunks will cook faster. On a hot fire the meat will be ready when the sermon is done if you don't scamp the rite. This makes me want to fire up my BBQ and time the task. This does imply that a team is ideal: the presiding priest (or initiate if no priest is present) to kill the sacrifice and preach the sermon. And a couple of initiates to do the butchering and cooking. Maybe another initiate or lay member to serve the pieces of meat. If there is a big animal or few worshippers everyone gets a skewer, otherwise everyone gets a chunk or two. Even a rabbit will give many bites. As Joerg indicates, even a couple of bites is good if you spent the week eating mush and gruel. I do recall that sacrifices don't have to be an animal. They can be wine or beer. I suggest a libation to the altar, then the assembled worshipers get the rest, perhaps the celebrating priest first. BBQ goes well with a beer. Sacrifices can also be valuable objects (see RQG p.316-317). I suggest that burning or melting will be the method of sacrifice. However this type of sacrifice won't fill the stomachs of the congregation. What do you think happens to objects as offerings, for a GM's description of the event? .

Actually it contributes to social stability if the amount you owe depends on the harvest, rather than being a set quantity. Yes you owe more in good years. But you owe less in bad years. So in time of famine what you owe the temple is not greater than the total harvest. Maybe everybody starves or eats wild roots, but you don't have the priests taking what grain there is while the peasants starve. And in good years you attribute your big harvest to the blessing of the god(s), so you don't get too upset. Set amounts are revolution material.

Perhaps because the worship roll mechanic is primarily intended for in-game events, which (A) may not occur on a holy day in a temple but on some random day in the back of nowhere or at a forgotten shrine, when the PCs are adventuring and need help from a god, (B) May be personalized to the PC, that is the PC is doing something in which there is a significant difference between the assistant priest who has been assiduously studying how to please the god and the unskilled lay member who has never conducted a ceremony. This is where skills and specializations pay off and it's important because the designers wanted to design a game in shich skill matters. They wanted such specializations in the game. Like tracking, where you expect to call on the humter, not the city boy, to track. Like riding, where the Prax nomad of the Bison tribe should have a definite advantage riding the bison over the PC who never rode a horse let alone a bison. And some of us players like the skills too, it's part of the appeal of Runequest over Brand X..

Dead on in my humble opinion. I recall seeing a picture of a medieval measuring stone: One big chamber for your part of the harvest, one small chamber for the church's tithe. Evidently at harvest time in the locality in question all the farmer's grain was measured into the stone in this way and then scooped out. Yes I know Glorantha is modeled on Bronze Age, not medieval - but the general idea is probably not unique to one time or place. As for swine - your sow breeds ten piglets during the year, you owe one at least if it survives to edible size. Animals are hard to conceal.

For Issaries, away from major cities where markets are always open, market day - (when possible market day should be Wildday of Movement week )- IS the minor holy day. So, two birds with one stone! Do well by doing good, that's the issaries way.

I saw the discussion , bought it, and am now reading the sequel. Queen'sHeir is good, i didn't want to put it down and missed most of a night of sleep.

Mikuel, It's an orientation thing. No, not their sexual; orientation. You've got to orient them, like freshman orientation in college. If they were D&D players their expectation may be that every goblin has a pot of gold and after two adventures of slaughtering 10 goblins each in an encounter, they're running around in plate armor. It's just not so in Glorantha: The broos don't have anything you want to keep (you can let someone take something from a broo and then get a disease, that's a shocker) , the wage rate is low, and you may get paid in cows or in teaching. Steel plate armor has not been invented. Orient them on these facts early: it's a different world. Check out Duke Raus' wage rate in Borderlands. https://www.chaosium.com/borderlands-pdf/ I suggest you give your players starting adventures in which the difficulty is scaled to their capabilities and number. They start out with a spear, shield, and leather or maybe a linothorax. A bow if they are Prax nomads, or whatever fits their book background. Maybe in the first adventure instead of killing ten goblins and an orc apiece, since it's Glorantha five of them kill one broo and two other broos run away. They sign on for an adventure and may or may not get paid in (A) a share of the loot, which may be a sword or a hauberk. (B) valuables. Like a sword or a helmet, or skill or spell teaching. Their motivation for undertaking these things will be the social relationships they never worried about in D&D.: Like their clan needs something done, or their temple. As a bonus they may get valuables as well. When they get some experience they may be worth hiring as caravan guards.

Yes, i like Ian Absentia's observation. I recommend two approached to be tried: A. For mounted: Require a test of the rider's STR against the mount's STR to hold on to the lance after contact. If the lance impales require the test to be rider's STR against (Mount's STR + target's SIZ). B. Infantry attempting to use very long polearms (long spears, pikes, lances) one handed will have their 1H spear chance of hitting halved; and reduced to 1/4 after the first round of melee, when the odds are that the opponent has gotten inside the length of the spear. It ought to be hard to "shorten up" on a pike held one handed to get it to 1H spear length. Just how do you go about that?

I do really like the idea that in order to use your sword to attack the guy with a pike, you first have to get past that pointy thing on the end of the pike. Which I note is used by one of my favorite non-FRP games, Blood and Plunder. So it's not an exotic thing to have in the rules.