Squaredeal Sten

23 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Does the obsidian dust form a clay which could be Orlanthi woad...

 

I suggest that because the Palace of Black Glass was only shattered in historical time [roughly 300 years ago on the current timeline]  by Belintar, there has not been anywhere near enough time for the obsidian fragments to weather into the very small particles that define clay.

I think of the Shadow Plateau's Uz as the survivors of an event which would remind you of the destraction of a city in nuclear war.  Think Mad Max movies.

Are Hall is much older.

So let's get down to practical matters, and go from absract principle to the actual society:

Who are the gatekeepers who decide whether a person is privileged to be a Man of All?

16 hours ago, MOB said:

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Done.  Glad you focused on some gamers-wanted support today.  Will look again tomorrw to see an indication of how many RuneQuest players sign up.

I am pretty sure that Gregor Mendel's work has no mythological equivalent in Glorantha, and that the Man Rune has little in common with DNA.

In othet words this is one of the cases in which we are entitled to ask "what is most Bronze Age?", "what fits myrh better?", and even "What makes a fun game?" and to  ignore the genetic theory and knowledge that has accumuated in the last two centuries in the Real World.

As far as shape changing spells go, we actually have some RQiG examples and rules in tbe Red Book, and I suggest it would be good to follow those.  That is a different issue from inheritance.

As far as inheritance goes, it seems to me that averaging the parental stats is understandable but doesnt always have to be done.  Even in the Bronze Age people must have observed that sonetimes children take after one parent in a specific way, sometimes they take after a grandparent or great grandparent.  Mendel (born 1822) explained it as recessive genes and systematized it.  But if you just want to say that Pavis's grandchild has or does not have a green tint, there is no rule to say you cannot.  The only limitation is where your players' suspension of disbelief stops.

Thats my own opinion anyway.

6 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

......

A young woman joins Ernalda.  She pays 1 POW.  For just one more POW she can cast Bless Pregnancy.  Unlike real world women for thousands of years, she won't die during childbirth.  Who isn't going to do this?  Well, maybe she waits until she becomes pregnant to sacrifice the second POW.  And maybe a friend can cast the spell for her.  But it still seems like a very likely thing spell to obtain by the tie she is in her mid-20s.

On the other hand Bless Crops meams you don't starve in famine times.  This is good every year, not just years she is pregnant.   Who would pass that up for your first spell?  Eating is so fundamental.

Choices, choices!

15 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

Look at my screenshot, Sten. I drew a red oval around the Explore Designs drop-down you’re meant to use. It’s  not the one at the top of the page, it’s the one that’s in the Chaosium store.

OK, "newest" is a drop down menu choice under Chaosium.

That drop-down also appears for individual artists.  I note that none of Loic Muzy's art for RuneQuest is on Redbubble, though some Cthulhu stuff is.  Nothing at all is identified with Agatha Pite.

Incidentally if you ever talk to Redbubble, the path to "follow" an artist is also non-obvious.

Well, i look forward to seeing more of the art from the cults books sold on Redbubble  in future months.  i will check back from time to time.

On 9/13/2023 at 2:29 AM, Nick Brooke said:

The best way to find new art in Chaosium's RedBubble store is to visit the store, click Explore designs, and make sure the drop-down filter for sort order is set to Newest. You'll find some lovely Prosopaedia internal art by Katrin Dirim at the top of the list, and if you scroll down you'll find the book's cover art.

(There are various "Collections" used to organise material, which you'll find in the Filters section to the left of the Shop products display, but I wouldn't bet on anything you're looking for landing up exactly where you'd expect it to be. We're not the Orderium, after all...)

Nick,

Thanks for the search advice.  But when I am in the menu bar item Explore designs" the drop-down selection for "newest" is not displayed, or at least not obvious to me.  The Explore Designs entry has six items in the drop down: Esthetics, Animals and Nature, For you, Netflix fan art, Official flan art, and Pop culture.  So "new"t is not one of them.  It evidently displays differently for me than for you.

Trying other things - A search for "Chaosium newest' does not work , it yields " Nothing matches your search for "Chaosium Newest".

But Explore Designs/ Following does give me "New designs from people you follow  "  That is evidently a key to seeing some of the art I might want.  It does seem to require that I have previously followed the right artist(a).  Luckily Katrin Dirim is one of those. 

I've got to say that the current functions seem to disfavor new artists as a practical matter, even though i suspect Redbubble's 'for you' display is meant to equally feature all artists: It certainly doesn't seem very tailored to me personally.  Perhaps it's me as a viewer category, the abstract concept of me.

If Chaosium has any leverage with Redbubble, you might ask them to review and improve their search options so that "new" is a filter selectable under "Chaosium" when  the filters bar is displayed.

It strikes me that the single die roll +/- modifier will give you a different distribution than two die rolls.

Is the RQ2 cult compatibility table a dead letter?

I note that thete is no equivalent in tbe RQG cults books published so far.  Associated cults are listed. and some dislikes are stated in general terms, but that is about it.  For examplr Issaries' relationship with Etyries is undefined.  Is this intentional YGMV material?

I do understand that with many more cults written up, the size of the matrix has grown exponentially.

Lately in my Zoom game we have been rinning between Korolstead and the Feathered Horse Queen and Colymar.  The goal is to ckear Korolstead and establish a Colymar colony.  As you might guess it has been a tremendius Rune  point sink.  Running with the PCs approx 10 game years from initiation, they are pretty powerful.  A minor holy day did not fill up their Rune points even  for the cult in question,, it only gives a D6 or D6+1,  - so from the viewpoint of my oarticular game it was not over powered.  And this has been a multiple season adventure.  I just run the calendar in accord with what happens in game, not forcing season breaks.

Ordered.  That was a quick hard copy status!  

I note that the posters from the Furthest book (Jonstown Compendium) can already be purchased from Redbubbke.  But as of Sept. 12th, I don't see any of the art from the first three of the new cults books which Chaosium has published.  Maybe I just don't know how to search for them, but....

Will selections from that art be sold through Redbubble?

9 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

When I'm GM, we skip these.  Why allow certain select cults access to ~28 more rune points a season?

Because the game world is so much more than whether one player has an advantage.

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

How does a shaman leaving for the spirit plane for good transfer a spirit society she is in charge of? How does a new "charismatic" shaman (are there any others?) take over?

I doubt that spirit societues or individual spirit cults would have a written constitution.  So there is no single rule.

What I envision is that first a shaman develops a spirit cult, then over time his apprentices and friends join it.  When the originsl shaman dies he may designate a successor, or alternatively one or more of the other shamans in the cult enter the soirit plane and bargain with that spirit.  You might abstract that bargaining as a roll against CHAx5, or another test such as POW+ CHA.  

As for soirit societies I am not even sure they will have a singke head shaman.  I see them as groups of spirit cults with signiglficant overlaps in worshipper membership andI compatable spirits.

On 9/9/2023 at 7:01 PM, Erol of Backford said:

So northern bound caravans would bring them. I envision Red Eye's kin similar to the Kuro-buta in Japan, black pig which is especially good as a breaded cutlet, bulldog sauce with shredded cabbage.

I would expect the cook usually has to work with dried figs, because fresh figs do not keep well.  Also that dried figs are the long distance trade commodity.

it would make sense to me if the scale of gift giving that was expected, was in proportion to the rank and prosperity of both the giver and receiver. 

In other words, a king would expect more impressive gifts than a clan chief would.  A high priest of Orlanth would expect more than your village god-talker of Barntar,  And a peasant, even a prosperous carl, would not be expected to give the same scale of gift as a very rich and well known merchant or noble.

The W&E entries do not indicate these things, and the answers should vary as your Glorantha does,  but I would expect that a customs roll would produce useful information from the gamemaster.

5 hours ago, ZedAlpha said:

Ooh, I'm stealing that for my upcoming Caladraland game. In fact, given the (relatively) close relationship between the Mostali and Caladralanders, I do like the idea that while Caladraland might be metal-poor, they know a bit more about metallurgy thanks to their fire gods and the nearby dwarves of Gemborg.

There is no need based in the Real World to say Caladraland HAS to be metal poor.

I am not a geologist, have just read a couple of geology textbooks.  But wikipedia indicates that the "native copper" deposits of Michigan were /are  associated with basalt intrusions into sandstone and other sedimentary rock.  Which sounds to me like vulcanism.  (Native metals means metals found in fairly pure form, rather than as compounds with non-metallic elements.)

They have mostly been mined out, but for thousands of years were mined by Native Americans with stone age methods.  And they produced about 5 million metric tones in historic times.

" In Keweenaw County, the fissure lodes were nearly vertical mineralized zones with strike nearly perpendicular to that of the enclosing basalts and conglomerates. In Ontonagon County, by contrast, the fissures had strikes nearly parallel to, and dips slightly steeper than, the surrounding beds.

The miners sometimes found masses of native copper up to hundreds of tons. To extract a single mass of copper, miners could spend months chiseling it into pieces small enough to hoist out of the mine. Although they were pure copper, removing the masses took a great deal of effort, and was sometimes not even profitable."

But in the old world mining copper sulfide ores and smelting the copper goes back to 5,000 BCE.

A google search also yields

" Igneous Processes: Copper can be found in igneous rocks such as granites, porphyries, and volcanic rocks. When magma, molten rock beneath the Earth's surface, intrudes into the crust, it can carry copper-rich fluids that crystallize and form copper ore minerals. "

 Again this "intrusion into the crust" describes vulcanism.

47 minutes ago, ZedAlpha said:

Ooh, I'm stealing that for my upcoming Caladraland game. In fact, given the (relatively) close relationship between the Mostali and Caladralanders, I do like the idea that while Caladraland might be metal-poor, they know a bit more about metallurgy thanks to their fire gods and the nearby dwarves of Gemborg.

Maybe not the Calandralanders in general.  Mostali hold tightly to their best secrets. I'd bet you have to do them a big favor to get bronzeworking training.  And they won't teach ironworking. Third Eye Blue may have tricked them but would they fall for that again? /  I am not sure that Caladraland should be especially metal poor.  I am not sure where Esrolia's copper comes from, but the Esrolians export copper, per Guide to Glorantha.   Are there any canon specifics about thise mines?

But with the volcanoes Caladraland  should be obsidian rich.  /  Have you considered Caladraland trades obsidian with the dragonewts, possibly via Sartarite middlemen?  That is a good Issaries adventure seed.  Dragonewts need klanths!

17 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

Yeah, CoR;EG talks some about that. Interestingly it seems like most miners are only lay members though, her initiates are just the ones who run the mines.

Speaking of other smithing related gods, Caladra & Aurelion are probably pretty important as the main source of coal, though I think wood is still the main fuel for smiths.

Actually charcoal.  It's easier to get and keep a hot fire with charcoal and a bellows than with wood.  Wood just flames up, plenty of heat but its hard to keep peak heat that way.  Wood coals are nice and stable but not the concentrated lumps of carbon that mineral coal is.  Nevertheless the pre industial RW ironworkers used charcoal.  Contributing to deforestation, so the archaeologists say.  Using mineral coal for a forge is probably a post Bronze Age thing, but its canon for Glorantha.  

IMG using coal coke is one of the Mostali secrets of iron smelting and  ironworking.  They buy firebone but don't tell the lesser races how they process and use it.  

As far as I know Gustbran is also the or a god of bakers as well as potters.  Presumsbly also of glassblowers, since W&E refers to Clearwine Bkue glassware.  Probably also a god of anyone who smelts ore.

Hiwever in a related train of thought, Asrelia would be the goddess of miners.

On 9/9/2023 at 2:24 PM, mfbrandi said:

Gorakiki Fig Wasp, that’d be some cult!

Fig wasos are pretty small in the Real World, sincetgey can crawl inside a fig.

in Glorantha of course they would be scaked to the figs.  i can see it now. domewhere in tbe Uz realms, maybe on the Shadow Plateau, maybe in Pamaktela-  there are fig trees so big the figs are the size of suitcases, and the fig wasps are the size of mice.

The harvesters carry one fig in each hand.

i really like the idea.  I really like figs, planted two fig trees when we moved into our house.

On 9/5/2023 at 5:26 AM, French Desperate WindChild said:

unnecessary if you consider flowers are pollen recipients etc... what  if you consider flower as flower, and nothing more, nothing related to pollination ?

Or if you consider flowers as a gift of the goddesses, to feed people, to feed beast, or just to be beautiful, we need them 🙂

Our ancestors saw flowers before someone understood the role of pollen. I imagine they did not say that flowers were unnecessary.

,,,,,,,,,,

 

as i don't need pollination (even if i need flowers 😛 

 

 

Our ancestors must have observed that fruit trees flower and then fruit davelops from the flowers.

figs are an exception, where the fliwer is the fruit.  But that is not so obvious.

28 minutes ago, Godlearner said:

We only roll to cast a spell "in combat", outside of combat they are auto cast. This goes for all spells no matter the type spirit, divine, sorcery, whatever.

Same here.  If there is no time pressure then they can do ritual prep, if they miss no harm they can do it over.  So why roll?

I understand the message but to me there things are benefits in the game  which tie it to this specific game world, not a gwneric brand x world..

in RQ2 initiates almost never cast Rune magic.  RQG gives more magical capacity.  Considering that, the rolls to cast are not a take-away as I see it.  They are just part of the magical background: POWer measures your spirit magic ability, so if you assign your low characteristic rolls to POW that was your choice in designing your adventurer.  Rune affinity is part of your link to the god, don't expect miracles without that link.

page 115, ( Pamalt) 5th and 6th lines in the left column:

"and together they planned the downfall his enemies" is ungrammatical.

Should be "and together they planned the downfall of his enemies"