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Stephen L

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Everything posted by Stephen L

  1. A lot of the tuskers in the defending Apple Lane scenario of the GM pack had it. They used it to some effect, but were still skewered by the formidable cavalry skills of the party. One of the more amusing scenes was the lead tusk rider was getting away, and the only way the players could think of stopping him was using a sylph to toss the Humakti duck in his path. The duck offed him in a single blow. I'm regretting the precedent, imaginative ways of tossing the duck places he really shouldn't be has become something of a theme of the campaign...
  2. Of course, you could just play it that he only has to convince the examiners he's a girl. Then it just becomes a roleplaying opportunity.
  3. However, the compelling piece of evidence overlooked by Beekes, is that calling the 3 headed hound of hell, “Spot”, is funny enough that it *has* to be true. Therefore, I reject Beekes conclusions. (Good piece of research though. Wikipedia, way deeper research than I’m willing to go, except in extremis. Strong opinions are much easier to hold on subjects on which one knows nothing)
  4. I thought Cerberos mean Spotty? Any Greek scholars out there?
  5. I have very fond memories of running an RQiii Viking campaign. The RQ rules translate very naturally and with very little effort for the Vikings (especially if you’ve access to the RQiii Viking supplement. I vaguely remember not using the scenarios from it though, but the rest was good). And RQinG rules would be even more amazing. For me it lacks the Bronze age feel of RQ (on the otherhand, Beowulf feels right, though). But then it was a good campaign, and people had fun, which is all that matters. If you’re after something less serious, how about adding dragons and turning it into a Cressida Cowell, “How to Train Your Dragon” campaign? Might amuse the younger members. (And in case the intonation with which I'm typing doesn't come across the internet, that's very much not a serious suggestion)
  6. This was also covered a bit in the thread about Sartar population densities: https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/13662-population-density-dragon-pass-holy-country/ However, I'm not sure there were many more suggestions for anywhere else not covered in you list The duck of the party in my campaign now has a Hadrosaur steed....
  7. This doesn't surprise me at all. I wanted to encourage augments, and I thought the penalty would be a real deterrent, so I have ignored it. There are two things that have influenced my thinking of this in my campaign. I have a lot of new players (many new to roleplaying), and half of them are younger than 11. And almost as soon as we started the campaign we went into lock down, so it is run remotely by Zoom. This means I want to involve as many people as I can in every piece of action, so no-one gets bored. This has been achieved by me encouraging as many augments as anyone can think of. We augment all over the place, and everyone is trying to think what the ycan do to help in any situation. And I have done so by (at the moment) ignoring the penalty if you fail, and only apply one on a fumble. Though I try to make fumbles as something imaginative happens rather than a simple penalty. When we start again to meet in person, I shall probably reinstate the penalty.
  8. The Dragonnewt wilds are an excellent idea. Lush, fertile, uninhabited, and the weird Dragonnewts ignoring human settlers. Except every so often the Dragonnewts inexplicably decide to eradicate the humans. It's called Huntland. The subject of the following thread: https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/13011-two-questions-about-dragonewts/?do=findComment&comment=202121
  9. If it helps I've a *lot* of pre generated stat blocks for NPCs monsters, available on down load. They're quick to generate (Typically the data files that controls the how the NPC is generated typically takes about an hour to put together, and then you can have as many of whatever as you want). So if you need anything specific, drop me a line. https://basicroleplaying.org/files/file/851-npc-squads-txt-v14zip-npc-squads-v14pdf/
  10. I'm glad it's of use (all the replies on the post have helped me). Apparently, riding to the stars on Hippogriffs to rescue a star maiden from fire demons was very much enjoyed by the players.
  11. There is "honour and good faith" in real world ransoms. King John of France was captured at the battle of Poitiers, he was eventually provisionally released to help raise his ransom. When his son broke the terms of the provisional release agreement, King John voluntarily returned himself to the English for re-incarceration. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ransom_of_King_John_II_of_France It is also a good example of how ransoms worked in real life.
  12. Many thanks for the pointers. The Sartar companion was invaluable for a guide to the Star Fire ridges. So in the end, I plumped for a re-creation of the tale of how Illavarn Orgorvantes won the hand of Elven Star Maiden. If any one finds anything of use this is how it went... Orgorvale Summer emerged to the wonderous landscape of the lands in Gods time, leading the players across Nymie vale to the Star-Fire ridges, not blasted and barren, but golden and rich, dotted with prosperous steads. At its heart, not the blackened cinder pits with fuming vents of noxious gasses, but a great hill, atop which sits a magnificent palace reaching to the stars! (I used pictures of the Etemenanki Ziggurat). At the foot of the steps they had to convince a guard to let them past, and after climbing the thousands of steps to the top, they entered the palace to hear Illavarn’s woeful tale, how he has fallen in love with the Star Maiden, Elena, but a man of flesh is denied the realm of the stars. They sent a message of his love via a hawk familiar that one of the characters has. There I thought it would end, but one of the adventurers thought of summoning hippogriffs and flying to rescue the star maiden themselves, defeating fearsome fire demons, gaining entry to Elena’s palace and persuading her to come with them to Illavarn’s palace. Great fun was had by all, so it made an excellent first Sacred Time for Orgorvale Summer. (And indeed it's the first time any of my players have done anything on the Gods Plane). And now to be dragged from the Stars to Hell for Starbrow's Sacred Time...
  13. The Thane of Apple Lane. In my campaign, she has a fear spiders passion after the last encounter. It was quite a memorable moment. As darkness fell, and the players pulled across the capstone of the ancient tomb, one of them looked puzzled. "If that's the only entrance," they said, "and we uncovered it, what do the spiders down there eat?" Just as the Thane was jumped by a particularly nasty spider, and ran off screaming into the night...
  14. New version uploaded. Mainly to correctly include the fan policy. The PDF is all one document now. However, if you needed spiders in your campaign, they're now included. However, sadly lost the review comments, especially as I'd just earned a 5 star!
  15. Version 2.2.0

    249 downloads

    If anyone finds them useful, here are some squads of NPCs I’ve generated. My campaign goes to Balazar, Huzzah! Added are Balazaring hunters, warriors, dogs (hunting and fighting) and Ogres. There are: txt files (which print to one side of A4 if font is set to 8, and margins small, 0.5 cm all round. Works best with a fixed font such as Consolas) and a PDF of them all (to A4, I’m afraid I’m UK based). There are now: Humans (All Regenerated or New for v2.0) Orlanthi-Warriors Orlanthi-Travellers Orlanthi-Light-Warriors Orlanthi-Thanes Orlanthi-Thanes-Mounted Pavis-Watch Pavis Thugs Praxians SableRider Lunar-Irregulars Lunar-Light-Infantry Lunar-Heavy-Infantry Lunar-Chaos-Infantry Lunar-Elite-Infantry Lunar-Heavy-Cavalry Lunar-Magician Marble-Phalanx-Hoplite Silver Shields Hypaspist Balazaring-Hunters Balazaring-Warriors Morokanth Morokanth (New for v2.0) Mounts Horses Bison Sable Antelope (New for v2.0) Dragonewts (All New for v2.0) Beaked Crested Aldryami (All Regenerated for v2.0) Dryad Elf-Brown Elf-Green Runner Uz (All Regenerated for v2.0) Trollkin-Bandits and Warriors Dark Trolls Dark Trolls Tough Great Trolls Cave Trolls Mostali Copper (New for v2.0) Iron (Regenerated for v2.0) Tusk-Riders Riders (Regenerated for v2.0) Tuskers Chaos (All Regenerated for v2.0) Broo Broo-Nasty Broo-Scary ScorpionMen Skeletons Balazaring Ogres Balazaring Ogres Mean Beastmen Ducks (Regenerated for v2.0) Baboons Centaurs (Regenerated for v2.0) Minotaurs (Regenerated for v2.0) Newtlings Wind-Children (Regenerated for v2.0) Animals Bears - Black, Brown and White Boar Dogs - Hunting Dogs - Fighting Mammoth Shadowcat Spiders (all sizes) Sakkar (normal, and chaos tainted Sakkar-Chaos Wolf (normal, Dire, shape-changed Telmori and chaos tainted Dire) Monsters: Griffin Hippogriff Sky-Bull Unicorn Wyrm (Regenerated for v2.0) Wyvern Dinosaurs Allosaur Ankylosaur Brontosaur Deinonychus Elasmosaurus Magus-Profundus Magus-Mediocris Magus-Magnus Pteranodon Spinosaurus Trachodon (Regenerated for v2.0) Triceratops Tyrannosaurus I will add to the above, as required for my campaign. But it’s slow moving. However, if you have any requests message me. In general, it doesn’t take long to create the data file that controls NPC generation for a new species. It’s about an hour’s work, and then you can have as many as you want. They are, of course, generated by a program, driven by a data file. Mostly lists of weighted probabilities for stuff. It weights cults/weapons etc. to the NPC’s runes, and it tries to be intelligent with the probabilities for weapons and armour, so the equipment doesn’t look completely random (whilst matching STR DEX and Enc limits). Anyway, what you see are all computer generated. If anyone is interested, I’m happy to share the code (it’s windows .Net, C#, and driven by XML data files). However, it’s designed for my own use, I’ve made no attempt for it to be user friendly, and input is solely by editing a XML data file, fine for those who’re happy with XML and have a decent editor. If there is any desire, I could add a GUI, if anyone twists my arm. Also, if you prefer a different layout (or want US paper sizes), shout and I can easily regenerate (or provide you the toolset and show you how the format’s controlled).
  16. Yes, I considered doing exactly this, for many good reasons, yours being particularly compelling. In the end I decided against it, in that I want there to be momentum in world events following the Dragon Rise. Rather than the Dragon Rises… and everything goes on hold for a bit. But I was a hair's breath away from doing exactly as you suggest. So the path I’ve taken is that I’m keeping to timeline, but I am currently averaging about 2 adventures a season, which gives space to cover all the multiple threads. So as not to penalise the players I’m allowing experience check’s after a significant adventure (if there’s some down time afterwards to catch breath and reflect). However, I only have rune points regained on season holy days. So it means that the players are cautious about spending them, and when they do, it's quite spectacular in those really tight moments. I wonder whether starting the campaign in 1624 might have been an idea. That would have allowed the characters to have been more developed with adventures driven by their own agendas rather than mine, before being thrown into the big world events. But then being thrown in the maelstrom is quite fun. As an aside, I find Glorantha’s richness (and the awesomeness in RQinG as a ruleset to support it), is that scenarios are just writing themselves, and still I have a huge backlog. I’ve only used two published scenarios (we've had about 8 "adventures"). And I haven’t actually touched the campaign that I had prepared before we began.
  17. Yes, most certainly, she is a source of information on Yerezum Storn, whom she knew personally, and the adventures book has rumour 98 marked as true: Or at least about the Dawn. Also her Shanassee Tree (again the adventures book)
  18. For those who have played through the scenario for Dragon for Thunder Hills, just picking some brains for ideas for the First Sacred Time for Orgovale Summer. One of my characters took the opportunity to become (a rather unlikely) high priest of Orgovale Summer. I do have an idea for a sacred time ritual, which I’m pleased with. But it’s too long, because they are going to be sucked into Kallyr’s lightbringer quest. So I’m looking for more of an hors d’oeuvre. My idea for a first sacred time was a ritual emissary to establish good relations with the land, i.e. Tarndisi. Tarndisi is having a few problems. The wild boar of a certain tusker group (their riders having been killed or captured by the party), have been completely unaccounted for, and they have gone wild, joining Red Eye, and are going on destructive rampages. Tarndisi wants a stop to this. She reveals to the party that in order to successfully hunt down Red Eye, they will need a hound. But the Black Growler is imprisoned in the underworld (conveniently, the Black Growler has made no appearance in the campaign as of yet), so the party must enter hell to retrieve him. I don't want just to trim it, because I'll probably use it later (although the campaign ideas are backing up now quite a bit). As an aside, in my campaign, Leika, fearful of the outcome of yet more rash actions by Kallyr, has *forbidden* the Colymar helping Kallyr’s quest, especially the player characters, who are a) outspoken supporters of Kallyr, and b) building quite a reputation for rash action themselves. But Orgovale Summer is pre-eminently a Vingkotling, so when Kallyr does the whole summon aid, answering that call is more or less hardcoded into who a Vingkotling is, and, O look, the players are already on the hero plane with Orgovale Summer. O dear. So I’ll swap my ideas for anything anyone else has done, or is thinking of.
  19. Not necessarily. Kallyr might have been raising a Star Dragon to disrupt the Lunar ceremony in the heavens. Perhaps it collided with Tatius's powerful 'As in Heaven above, so on Earth below' magic with some very unintended effects by everyone present.
  20. Possibly, elements. (though I have to mention Njal's and Egil's Sagas which are quite extraordinary.) If we're in the North, then I think Beowulf (Seamus Heaney's translation is very good) is closer the mark, at least for me. Also the Celtic myths, e.g. the Mabinogion. But for me it more Mediterranean: Iliad and Odyssey and Aeneid, The Greek Myths (Robert Graves) (no one's mentioned any of them, are they just way too obvious, or just not as obvious as I think) and the early bits of Livy. The Epic of Gilgamesh feels very Gloranthan to me. I've Lavinia by Ursula Le Guin on my to read list, precisely because I've heard very good things about it and it sounds very Glorantha. Also the behaviour of the gods in American Gods (Neil Gaiman) is how I imagine the Gods of Glorantha.
  21. The Lismelder are listed as a Free Tribe in Barbarian Adventures, which indicates they "have not succumbed to the oppression of the Lunar Empire. They deal with the empire out of necessity, but true kings rule them, not lunar puppets". For me there's many way of interpreting how the dynamics between Lunars/Orlanthi might work, but a personal friendship between Harvald the Hairy and Lergius Kassiasand doesn't necessarily mean general pro-Lunar sympathies. Or a figure-head king who has no real power, but is there just to make a tribes life easier with the Lunars is another possibility. I would tend to go with whatever suits the drama of the moment for the campaign you're in. However, the way I'm running it is that the Poss are not so much pro-Lunar as anti-Greydog, and a superficial acceptance of the Lunars is their way of gaining ascendancy. However, the Lismelder interdependency with the Druluz against the horrors of the marsh, and the Lunar anti-Druluz stance, means that any acceptance of Lunars will be *very* superficial. In my campaign. The main centres that I'm aware of are Sun Dome Temple, Runegate and Alda-Chur (Though I've probably forgotten somewhere obvious). The Lismelder have strong links to Humakt, (indeed the Humakti tribal champion, Cornard Deathdealer, has featured in my campaign) so there will be inter clan rivalries if a clan is pro-Yelmalio, but that's not difficult to believe, and could be good fun to play. If you did make a clan lean to Yelmalio, my money would be on the Poss. I can't see this as a particular constraint, just a really good hook to get the referees creative juices going for a good story as to why an individual/clan is Yelmalian!
  22. Statx5 is simply turning a stat (measured on a scale of 1-20), to a percentage (1-100). So, it very intuitive: use the same modifiers for skills. -25% for a difficult task (turns an expert, 75%, or Stat 15, to average, 50%/ Stat 10) -50% for a masterfully difficult task (Turns a master, 100%/Stat 20 to average, 50%/ Stat 10) -75% for a heroically difficulty task (turns a hero, 125%/ Stat 25 to average, 50%/ Stat 10) I tend not to use any finer modifiers, as I don’t think slight graduations of difficulty adds to the drama of the roll.
  23. I had always assumed that Duck’s did not make natural riders because they’ve short legs, and splayed (i.e. webbed) feet. However, I wouldn't have thought that means it’s impossible for them to ride, just that they’re not natural. (With the Caveat that I’ve never ridden, but I’ve always felt that a lack of knowledge should never hinder holding a strong opinion on a matter. Indeed, it’s almost a pre-requisite). However, I can’t see why short legs and webbed feet would make riding side saddle, for example, impossible. For the Duck in my campaign, his sole life goal was to be a dinosaur rider. Which, after many adventures, he’s finally achieved. He has rescued the last surviving hadrosaur, of a tribe that was massacred by a pair of Spinosaurs. The party killed, not one, but both Spinosaurs, in ways that made me, the referee, laugh. (But then by definition, a Spinosaurus is going to require some ingenuity, as any plan involving hitting it as hard as you can has drawbacks in this instance). The duck has just had a seat made for said hadrosaur. He sees it a bit like a throne. Everyone else thinks of it as a child seat. But it works. And even if everyone laughs, if you're on the back of a Hadrosaur, they'll be doing it very politely!
  24. Which is on its side because he's drunk too much and fell over.
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