GAZZA

Heh, fair enough.

Even if he's illuminated? I mean, isn't this more or less what Yanafal Tarnils did - copy Humakt all the way to the point where he was essentially identical, and then cheat?

Yeah, I hear ya guys. What I did in my game was allow the player to pick any 1H Axe as their actual skill; if they picked Battle Axe they'd need to write it in as "1H Battle Axe" since "2H Battle Axe" is a separate skill. Did the same for 1H Spear (with the same caveat applied to Short Spear). I'm not overly convinced that RQG was consistent here; on the one hand dispensing with separate Attack/Parry skills because "nobody ever trains in just Attack" (despite the fact that the rules already knew this; in RQ3, for example, you explicitly trained Attack and Parry simultaneously, or Weapon Attack and Shield Parry if you preferred - it was only experience checks that would result in them getting out of sync) thereby reducing the number of skills, but then deciding that using a short spear 2H and a long spear 2H were so fundamentally different that you only got 1/2 your percentage. Honestly I am not by any means convinced that not just training in categories of weapons (1H Axe for all axes you use one handed, 2H Mace for all maces you use two handed, and so on) is a terrible simplification that destroys the integrity of the simulation... but I did promise my players we'd play for at least a while without any signficant house rules, so I had to come up with something.

True enough, but at least one purpose of Hero Questing (as I understand it) is to become more like your god. And Humakt is the god of severing, amongst other things; if there's one cult that I think might be able to sever the connection to the Fertility Rune (or the Air Rune or Movement Runes) it would be Humakt, since he canonically broke his ties to the Storm Tribe (at least in the most popular version of the Monomyth; I have heard there's a variant Humath who instead swore allegiance to Orlanth instead).

Eh. I have it, but I have a couple of objections to it. Firstly, it's basically a D&D Heartbreaker - I don't think the creators could even seriously dispute that - and if I want to play D&D I'll play 5e (I do, in fact, regularly - although not since I started my RQG game last month). Secondly, it seems that all the planned supplements they were going to produce are no longer going to be produced (or at least that is the impression I got from sending emails to several people, only to get back answers like not having the license, or waiting for contributors, or whatever - I gathered that with RQG's publication 13AG is pretty much twisting in the wind). I'd love to hear I was wrong about that - even if I won't necessarily play the game, I'm always interested in supplements or adventures I can repurpose. Neither of these are reasons not to play of course - it is just not my cup of tea, I think both HeroQuest and RQG (both with their own flaws) are more my sorts of games.

Oops, sorry, never meant to imply that! I read it the same way, but that's still a consequence that I'd be happy to hand out a tick for risking. Losing Rune Points temporarily, even in RQG, is not (IMHO) an insignificant consequence.

Depends on how many seasons you get where they don't adventure, but in my current campaign I suspect that number is going to be pretty close to zero, at least for a while. In a sense using a Rune spell is always somewhat risky, because if you fumble you lose the rune points. But then again I consider the core advancement mechanics in RQG to be glacially slow so I'm not really the type to be bothered by something as minor as an extra chance at a Rune improvement roll when I'm already giving advancement rolls at the start of every session and allowing separate checks for Specials, Criticals, and Fumbles (so you could get as many as 4 chances to advance a skill per session). So given that I'm already somewhat off the beaten path here I can understand if other GMs disagree.

Also, "he shouldn't command ancestors" is presumably based on the idea that the ancestors are deserving of respect. Would this not be the case for the cult spirits of pretty much any god - even elementals? Isn't any air elemental just a child of Umath, and essentially brother to Orlanth? (Of course the same arguments apply as to why you should nonetheless need Command Cult Spirit - just pointing out that Daka Fal isn't necessarily special here).

On a slightly related note, I had a situation come up on Saturday where a dragonsnail had the Chaotic feature that, upon death, it attacked the killer in spirit combat. I played it such that the dragonsnail spirit had to manifest to do this, so that the other PCs were able to help with Disruption spells and the like (nobody has any enchanted weapons, Truesword, or similar). Did I make a mistake there - are spirits engaging in spirit combat normally invisible?

Hang on. RQG rules say that only Rune levels can learn enchantments (as Rune spells, that is - but I presume that's what you mean). I mean I'm not saying I think that's necessarily a good rule, but it's a rule (e.g. pp 276 and 280, one of the benefits of being a Rune Priest or Rune Lord is access to Enchantment spells - even God Talkers don't get that).

But atone to whom? The god didn't give you the fetch, and the Horned Man isn't someone you have a connection to (i.e. you don't sacrifice POW to the Horned Man). Atone to the community, I suppose? But that's a mundane duty, not a mystical one; that would be akin to saying that refusing to muck out the stables could strip you of your initiate connection to a god of horses.

That looks to me to be a distinction without a difference.

I mean, obviously YGMV, but the rules (RQG pp356) are pretty clear that once you have a fetch, you always have a fetch. In addition I don't think shamanhood is something your god is all that involved with; most cults that allow shamans say something along the lines of "any initiate of X who becomes a shaman ..." (e.g. Yelm). Canonically shamanhood is a spiritual process, not a divine one, and the Horned Man is the guardian rather than any particular god. (Though I suspect there are certainly exceptions; off the top of my head I think that Kyger Litor and Aldrya might qualify or at least give a slightly different process). I see it as similar to cult spirit magic - your god can't take that from you either. (My knowledge is not exhaustive by any means, but I am unaware of any spirits of reprisal that grab your spirit magic, even if it is unique spirit magic (not that I'm sure that even exists any more in RQG; even Sleep is apparently open to anyone that will teach it).

I can't believe I missed that before. Well, I can, but only because I didn't realise Ernalda and Flamal had that sort of connection. That's really been my problem in general with Glorantha - I love Hero Quests, but I don't know nearly enough to design them myself - for example, in River of Cradles it mentions that Sun County was essentially formed from what sounds a lot like a "Yelm is saved by the River" Hero Quest, and I've no idea whatsoever where to find that, how to break it into stations, and the like. And given one of my players is playing a Yelm initiate, that might come in handy at some point. The mechanics will hopefully be covered in the eventual game master's guide (here's hoping it doesn't become an extension of "the Hero Quest rules are released next year"), but I need to really dig in to the Gloranthan Sourcebook and learn more of the mythology.

Isn't kinstrife, by definition, also not honourable?

IKR? Seems like a gimme.

I'm an Aussie as well, but unfortunately I'm over in Perth.

Interesting stuff. I can honestly say I don't recognise most of the events @Eff has referred to above (so I will have to downgrade myself from "Gloranthan Novice" to "Who is this Glorantha guy anyway" status), but I especially like the whole "hey, if you saw Bob instead of Waha, you must not be very devoted to Waha". In particular this means that essentially no existing god could defeat Nysalor/Gbaji or (in more modern times) Sedenya - Arkat couldn't have prevailed as "merely" an incarnation/descendent of Humakt, Argrath couldn't have prevailed as "merely" an incarnation of Orlanth. To quote Arrow: "I had to become someone else - I had to become something else". Which is very cool, and will have to be something I can figure out for my players to do themselves eventually.

Given the frequency of severing limbs in RQ, it might mean literally "foes who no longer have arms". Seriously though, I'd assume it basically means "non-combatants". Which is, as you note, a trickier category in a world where every man and his dog might know Disruption to get rid of rats, but I'd suggest there is nonetheless a difference between a farmer that has a sharp hoe and knows Disruption to kill field mice, and a warrior with a blood drenched sword covered in Death runes. Basically I'd rule it on a case by case basis - if, in my estimation, the victim was not someone that could reasonably be viewed as (even a minor) threat, then they lose the honour. Of course that is not an ideal answer, because anyone could be a threat if they get a lucky critical, but it should be good enough for practical purposes.

(But by the way, thank you very much @metcalph for the reply - I don't wish my endless novice status to be seen as ingratitude ).

OK, cheers, but that raises a couple of (not strictly speaking related) questions. Doesn't apotheosis break the Compromise? (Although I guess Osentalka kind of started that off, and Sedenya could also be regarded as at least stretching it). Or is Pavis a "god" in the "extremely powerful Hero" sense, akin more to Harrek or the Razoress? (Though I realise that at some point the distinction between what used to be called a Superhero and a God is somewhat blurred, at best). Is the Compromise not common knowledge to Gloranthans? Would it not be obvious that it couldn't have "really" been Waha but rather some Waha Heroquester (or whatever), such that recording that in the history books as being the actual god would be instantly seen as false? I have a copy of the Glorious Reascent of Yelm but I must confess I find it largely impenetrable (I don't find King of Sartar to be a very good read either, to be honest - and I'm sure that's on me, but still); however I understand that it suggests that Yelm worshippers have recorded history that goes back to the God Time and do not measure time in the same way (which is interesting, since Time itself wasn't supposed to exist before the Dawn, but I'm assuming there's a fair bit of poetic license involved in saying that the God Time was timeless). Eh, I'm not even sure myself if I'm asking the right questions; perhaps this is a better question in the Ask Jeff forum.

I've been doing a bit of "deep background" reading for my Praxian campaign (which is about to head into the Big Rubble to take care of Oll and the gorp plague), so I'm reading Pavis/Big Rubble (the reprinted one from Moon Design, if that matters). On page 55 there is a chronology of Pavis that appears to very very strongly imply that Waha and Pavis were active around the 9th century (i.e. 800-877 or so). My understanding was that gods couldn't do that; that once the God Time ended, gods couldn't just waltz around Glorantha making friends with giants and bashing down cities, nor could those cities raise their own gods to fight back. So that suggests that Pavis is a created god not too dissimilar to Osentalka/Nysalor/Gbaji/WhateverYouWantToCallTheFirstAgeIlluminatedDude - fair enough - but also that Waha was some sort of created god too. My understanding was that Waha was the bloke that taught Peaceful Cut and separated the men and the beasts, so it is surprising to me that he wasn't around in the God Time, as that suggests that there was a time in the First Age (or even Second Age, since I believe the time frame here is that of the God Learners and EWF, which is supported by a few references in the chronology) that there were, presumably, human intellect herd beasts running around if Waha was responsible for sorting out the eaters and the eaten. Which means I'm wrong on some or all of those assumptions - which ones?

Yeah fair enough if you're getting close (or over) the limit on spirits. Mind you that's new in RQG; RQ3 didn't have any limit to how many spirits you could have bound, and (until errata) the cost for an MP enchantment was 1 POW per MP stored (later errated to 1d10, but that's still less efficient than a Bind POW spirit for 1 POW). However it is of course unreasonable for me to say that RQ3 didn't have such a limit in response to an RQG thread.

Or just to get the tick on your Rune, to be honest.

I'm not sure that would be appropriate just for awakening your fetch and becoming an apostate. That's more a "I worshipped Humakt but went around distributing Resurrection matrices to everyone" sort of response. Though I suppose there may be some sort of anti-Daka Fal type god that feels the same away about shamanism as Storm Bull does about Chaos.