Squaredeal Sten

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?

On 7/6/2020 at 7:50 AM, Kloster said:

Another related question: On which part of the character's income does the tithing apply? Professional income (I think yes, but see later for priests and rune lords)? Land income (not sure because 10% is already taken by Orlanth cult and 10% by Ernalda cult)? Income paid by a cult to it's Priests and Rune lords (seems absurd, because the cult is supposed to pay for the standard of living of it's priests)? Adventuring (for lack of a better word) income (I say yes)? Gifts (I don't know, but see all the posts above)? Ransom (I would say that the whole ransom is going to the clan/guild/family)?

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.

On 6/16/2020 at 3:26 AM, Thaz said:

What would the trolls offer for sale that might sell in Pavis?

...Honey! Royal Jelly! In a world without sugar cane or sugar beet processing large amounts of sweet goodness is important. Insect eggs. Lead crafted items (lead is really useful for plumbing, roofing and many other things in the human world). 

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?

On 6/11/2020 at 11:36 PM, GAZZA said:

An interesting side point: if I have Worship Orlanth 5, and via expenditure of magic points and sundry bonuses on a High Holy Day have an effective skill of 95+, I will likely succeed at my roll. Does this garner a skill check, even though if rolled say 45 (which would not otherwise have been a success)? RAW seems to suggest it is, and I allow it IMG, but it is a bit cheaty.

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.

On 6/14/2020 at 1:26 PM, Thaz said:

Sometimes the Gods take them also. 

 

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.  .

On 6/12/2020 at 8:20 AM, Joerg said:

There are other distant pursuits for a clan - resource-gathering panning for metal, digging for gems or high-quality clay, cutting specially-grown branches for purpose carpentry (or barrels, or arrows and javelins, or collecting bast for ropes and seams, or simply for basket-making), collecting truffles, gathering nuts for winter fodder (acorns, beechnuts, chestnuts, hazel), collecting mushrooms, flowers, herbs, roots in the wild for all manner of purposes (medical, flavour, dyeing, scents).

It would be interesting to know the exact duties and tithes of tenant farmers. How many side jobs can they get away with?

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.

On 6/11/2020 at 8:54 AM, Joerg said:

Let's say we take the piglet Vasana and Yanioth offer. (And look at Yanioth's choice of clothing, or lack thereof, for the bloody rite...)

After the ritual bleeding, you will want to let it hang a little longer, and then you may disembowel and spit it, apply some herbs and salt, and maybe roast it, or you chop it up and create a strong broth from it. Either way, this will take a while, so if you came here to get some better food, you'll have to endure some more service (unless you already volunteered for cooking service).

Likewise, the priesthood will have an idea how long it takes to transform a holy sacrifice into a palatable meal, and they will shrewdly have adjusted their ceremony to make the best out of that time.

A piglet for fifty will be no more than a few mouthful per person. A feast if all you can afford is thin gruel, but everyday food for a free household.

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.

3 hours ago, BlindPumpkin said:

........
A weird quirk related to minor holy days that I've noticed is that, if you can only effectively roll worship on holy days, then why does a minor holy day give you a bonus at all? If you'll always have at least the +10 bonus from a minor holy day then why not just bump worship to 15 base instead of 5 base? I feel minor holy days shouldn't have a bonus at all, that people pray every week precisely because of the lower odds.

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..

On 6/10/2020 at 3:42 AM, Akhôrahil said:

The x percent can probably be regarded as a simplification for gameplay - in practice, I don't think a farm (for instance) is supposed to tally its total production and send off 20%, rounded to the nearest value in Lunars. It's far more likely that your stead is obligated to provide the temple with n bushels of rye and two swine, or something along those lines.

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.

On 6/10/2020 at 3:46 AM, Thaz said:

Because attending church on Sunday was something believers just get bored with? Gods do actual miracles. Plus you get to dress up in your best and see all your neighbours and have a decent meal (cos sacrifices go somewhere). Not to mention you want to be thought of as a good person when you need something. 

It's going to be a highlight of the week. Along with market day 

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

On 6/5/2019 at 7:01 PM, g33k said:

Actually, the Boyle seems to have been published!!!

Just, reskinned a bit...

https://www.amazon.com/Queens-Heir-Fantasy-Hittites-Children-ebook/dp/B01GD9GHGM#customerReviews

 

, 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.

1 hour ago, Ian Absentia said:

I like this, because I've sometimes mused that it doesn't matter so much how strong your mount is in a charge if: a) you're not strong enough to hold onto your lance upon making contact; and/or b) you're not strong enough to hang onto your mount.

!i!

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?

On 5/16/2020 at 11:38 PM, Vile said:

I have moved to initiative order simply based on DEX in all games I run these days. I don't even bother rolling-off for ties, characters with the same DEX just act simultaneously.

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.

Picking up on that last thought -  it strikes me that a temple of Ernalda would have a garden.  And a temple with a powerful priestess will have a really really good garden.  Which should serve as sort of an advertisement for the temple.

Just a suggested atmosphere piece for GMs.

On 5/23/2020 at 1:19 PM, Akhôrahil said:

There are two really big impacts of Bless Crops. The first is that, just as with Worship, it means you don’t really need what would seem like an important skill, because it’s so easy to push it to 95% anyway.

The second is that it trivializes penalties. Who cares if you received a -30% for being seriously raided - that’s small change in the equation!

Of course if separate castings are not cumulative than that takes caster with 10 rune points, which likely means a Priestess.  Certainly not your garden variety initiate. 

But it does imply that for a place big enough to support a temple of Ernalda and have such a priestess, a limited amount of land can be made to bloom, to such an extent that visitors will notice. 

.

On 5/23/2020 at 1:14 PM, Akhôrahil said:

It’s not stackable with other castings of itself, was my point.

Good point, and that changes the numbers but not my general conclusion.

so let's take a less favorable but more probable case:  The new initiate comes home with 2 rune points and Bless Crops and some other cult rune spell.

Each week she can Bless one hide of land for =40%.  The odds are very good that she will recover her 2 RP on the next minor holy day, so basically she can do this every week; but let's say she does it every other week because she is also using her other rune spell to help childbirth or...

Anyway, over five seasons she does four Blessings per season and covers 20 hides.

The outcome in an average year is +40% both for the landlord and the tenant.   The expected net 60 L per hide after Temple payment is now an expected 84 L.

That's pretty good for economic development.

So  IF the GM grants case A and then IF we roleplay it out (which i have every intention of doing) then it increases the 5-hide noble's expected income by 120 Lunars.  It increases the tenants' expected per-household agricultural  income by 24L apiece, which is great prosperity when you start with a base of 60.  This is moving the standard of living to the point where there is disposable income.  And in a bad year it means ???

Worst possible year: 

Cursed omens (10% chance) = -25% to harvest roll.   Raiding: major invasion (not rolled for, i assume this means the GM will have made the players game it out) give -40% to harvest roll,  Previous harvest: Famine gives - 10%  Harvest results roll of 1 is famine (10% chance) , = -60%;  We get a cumulative  - 135%, the Bless Crops fives _40% but the total is  +5%, essentially wiping out everyone's income.  -

Anyway in the worst possible year the player-characters' Manage Household or Farming rolls don't matter, they will have next to no income whether the Adventurer's farming or manage household rolls succeed or fail.  (A critical gives double income, double 5% is 10%, that's still going to push a Free person with one hide of land below Poor and a Noble with 5 hides down to 30 which is high-Poor .) However ignoring GM-declared invasions, which are not a random event,  this should only happen 0.1% of the time.  

Expectable Bad year;

ill-favored omens, -10%.  Previous harvest bad or good = no modifier.  Rolled harvest result Bad= -30%, total modifiers = -40, is balanced by the Bless Crops +40%. 

The Noble Adventurer makes five  skill rolls for 5 hides,, gets their base income on three, failure on two  for half income (I told you it's a bad year) .  Total income on the equivalent of 4 hides after those bad rolls = 40 L occupational income for nobility x4x1.0 =  160 Lunars,  less 200 for Standard of Living means our noble is in the hole by 40L.

Withoout the Bless Crops strategy this Expectable Bad Year gives -40% so the Noble's income is 40L x4x0.6 = 96 lunars.  After standard of living our noble is in the hole 104 lunars.

So with the bless Crops strategy we are going to counteract most of the ordinary 'bad year' results, subject to the non-random GM effects.   Our Adventurer had better have some cash saved up, but the bless Crops strategy is still worth 64 Lunars in the Expectable Bad Year..

Expectable Good year:

Good omens roll of 71 gives  +10%, Raids are only Tusk Riders -10%, previous harvest bad or good = no modifier,  harvest results roll is 61, Excellent, +30%.  Total = +40%, Bless Crops strategy +40$, gives +80%.   The Noble Adventrurer makes five  skill rolls for 5 hides,, gets their base income on three, failure on one and special success on ore equal out.  Total income on 5 hides = 40 L occupational income for nobility x5x1.8 =  360 Lunars,  less 200 for Standard of Living means +160L increase in personal wealth.

Without the Ernalda initiate strategy, these numbers would be +40% 40L x5 x 1.4 = 280, less 200 for Standard of Living means +80L in personal wealth.

Looks to me as if the expectable good years will more than balance the expectable bad years.

Looks to me as if spending, say,  360 Lunars, to support that girl in her year of Initiate study (Free standard of living plus professional level training cost per season of 60L x 5 seasons for the temple)  is worth while and will pay back 80L in Expectable Good Years or 64L in Expectable Bad Years. This is a 5-6 year payback period, much better than investing in  a merchant's stock which returns 10% per year.

Enlightened self interest says give the girl a scholarship if you have the cash to do so.  End of prospectus.  Oratory check?

In the context of "Between adventures and harvest results"  (pp,420-423 of Runequest: Roleplaying in Glorantha)

is it your opinion that the Determine Harvest Results outcomes can be modified by having more Ernalda initiates who use the bless Crops spell, or do those results already include the assumption that all such interventions have been made?

The reason that i ask is a discussion of economic development.  Will it be worth while for the player characters to essentially give a scholarship to an aspiring Ernalda cultist so that there are more initiates in and around the town who can and will cast Bless Crops?  Or are we spinning our wheels?

I note that Gloranthan agriculture seems to be much more productive than pre-industrial  terrestrial agriculture, since one farming household can support one non-farming household at the same level of income, or  roughly 4:1 for noble households.   I  deduce that the 90% peasants proportion among pre-industrial terrestrial economies does not apply to Glorantha. 

Note that Bless Crops covers one hide of land for a rune point.  An Ernalda  initiate worshipping on all minor and seasonal holy days, and able to augment by using ritual ceremonies so that the worship rolls are almost a sure thing, should be able to recover about 130-140 rune points per year, not counting high holy days and sacred time.  if she spends about half of these rune points on Bless Crops, and the other half on pregnancies and such, she will be able to perform five castings to single every hide of 12 hides of land.  One casting improves the modifier by 20% so five stacked produce a +100% modifier on that area (p.321).  This looks like excellent  insurance against famine in bad years and a 75% increase in production in good years.

So if we arrange that, will the landlord's and the farmers' average income of 60L per hide of land be increased to about 105 L?

I note that this may not work out if the initiates change book = market prices for their magic: At a price of 20L per rune point [see p. 406, Spell Casting]  that initiate would make about 2600 Lunars a year, gross.    That is impossible to pay out of the cash value of the crops.    (12 hides average cash value = 60 per hide x2 for farmer and landlord together, x12 hides= 1440 L; if the harvest is increased by 75% in a good year = 2520L.)  So we know the initiate can't be capturing that much value.

On the other hand the village has a largely non cash economy, and the initiate is doing this for the fields of her own household, sibliings, and cousins, and will presumably be rewarded in prestige and influence in addition to keeping the family fed.  And what is Bless Crops for anyway of it is not going to be used?  Why would you Initiate in the cult of Ernalda if you didn't intend to use the rune spells?  There has to be a reason you worship the Earth goddess.  Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that not all rune spell casing is done at a cash 20L rate.  Noting that a sharecropping farmer's annual household income is defined as about 60L.  

Either the initiate is one of a rural elite whose incomes are far far above average, or they aren't charging so much but are very important people in the community. 

In conclusion, which is it? 

A- the Determine Harvest Results outcomes can be modified by having more Ernalda initiates who use the Bless Crops spell,.

or

B- those results already include the assumption that all such interventions have been made.

.