Mao

yeah I had to use an alternate email to get a verification on a different account, it was odd

Man... I wish I had this handy when I was rolling up the characters with my group a week or two ago! Hahaha Seriously though this seems like a really useful and neat tool. I haven't noticed any bugs yet but I'm a RQ:G newbie when it comes to actual rules. I am very grateful a tool like this exists now, I'm sure when some of the problems are ironed out it will be incredibly useful in the future. I'm not sure if there is but having a custom 'write in' of some kind like, an 'other' category when selecting Cult would be nice. Both for letting people play lay members and also for people incorporating JC content. I did notice you can put yourself down as a Lay member if you do 'import sheet' option though. Idk how easy that would be to implement, just my two cents.

We can probably safely assume that Fang of Wachaza (page 50, Red Book of Magic) is a Wachaza spell. It will outright kill someone who doesn't succeed in a CON resistance check against a hit from a spear, javelin, dart or trident. It's five rune points which is a lot, but it is temporal so you could get a major boost in lethality with Wachaza marines mass all being able to cast it throughout a battle. So the God Learners saw a War Cult that had instant death magic, and could quite easily be integrated into a fleet. Floating temple battle barges are a really scary prospect to deal with! They don't need to retire to their clan stead temple for their rune points, all they need is to organise in their fleet, do a worship ceremony and that's that. They're already on the ocean. Of course this is me assuming, maybe Wachaza is actually a bit more restrictive than that. I have actually noticed in the Jeff post about the Emperor of the Land and Sea (that's what is essentially the leader of the Middle Sea Empire, i.e. the expression of power of the God Learners as a temporal ruling body. Or maybe the God Learners are an expression of the magical power of the Middle Sea Empire?) the idea is their military force moved as a giant imperial fleet. Complete with 20,000 sailors and Wachaza marines. Jeff is implying that the fleet basically moved as a floating city (a mobile metropolis being the exact words). Given the numbers involved, and how game-y we can assume the God Learners were; they probably abused the fleet to its fullest. I could totally see them decking out their ships with shrines to every single associate of Wachaza (which they'd be able to find out who is and who isn't) and maximise rune point recovery, from the holy days of Wachaza associates, for their Marines so that they're not caught lacking the Rune Points necessary for warfare. The fleet was also backed up by water and air elementals that meant fighting them on their terms would be an uphill battle. Basically the fleet seems kind of like the Gloranthan equivalent of a whole fleet of Aircraft Carriers. They could park it near their enemies and just harass them endlessly. the Jeff-post in question: https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/the-divine-fortune-of-the-emperor-of-land-and-sea/ I find this characterisation of the God Leaner Empire as being more than just experimental hero quester scientists quite interesting. And given how powerful they were at sea, it makes The Closing make even more sense and perhaps makes us sympathetic to the reasons for it. Even if shutting down ocean trade would have caused many, many problems.

Yeah I was thinking the cover is maybe the first piece of art in RQ:G that gets across that Genertela is kind of American looking/climate in places, it's cool. Feels very real. I'm not sure how you describe them, but the like banded sediment rocks/cliffs and the sparse evergreen trees always make me think of America. I'm not sure why, maybe westerns (especially Red Dead Redemption) and looney tunes backgrounds that are lodged in memory from when I was young.

Going back into the God Time and beating up the parts that become the Red Goddess might not work since many of them have failure and pain and death baked into their Mythological Experience. You might just get identified/switch identity with the entities that damaged the various Moon Goddesses rather than doing it in your own special way to fulfil some political aim. At worst (for you) maybe the suffering you make them feel becomes something new they internalize and grow resistant against once those parts are integrated into the Red Goddess, triumphing over the suffering like the moon does everytime it turns from dead-moon phase. Kind of like a bacteria growing resistant to anti-biotics. To paraphrase a tumblr post, the Red Goddess's position on this might be something like this: "Can you feel your heart burning? Can you feel the struggle within? The fear within me is beyond anything your soul can make. You cannot kill me in a way that matters." You could definitely strike them when they're weak, just like Sheng Seleris did to the Empire by egregiously abusing their moon phases where they are weaker... but the Empire bounced back like it always seems to do.

Antirius subcult? Is that as a sub-cult for Yelm or Yelmalio? I assumed at first all the ones you listed were sub-cults for Yelm but Erissa included confuses me. Does that imply Erissa as like, a sub-cult in the sense it's a figure very close to the Yelm cult as opposed to being a regional variant of Yelm? (albeit Erissa is regional, Pelorian version of Chalana Arroy). That is to say, to use an example, Erissa's inclusion in Yelm's cult writeup is like Barntar or Drorgarsi listed as a sub-cult in Orlanth's Cults of RuneQuest: The Lightbringers cult writeup? Not being a regional variant of Orlanth but still very close to his cult. If these are all just Yelm's sub-cults this is very promising and interesting! One thing I was really curious is whether archers in Peloria/Lunar Empire all needed descent from Yelm to draw on Yelm the Archer (Saggitus) or not. Yelm's cult is restrictive but there's a lot of archers out there, was my thinking. Thanks!

What I'm most curious about will be sub-cults for Yelm and how the Yelm of the Pentans and the Yelm of Dara Happa will differ (i.e latter is Yelm Imperator, former is uh I don't know the proper term for it. Yu-Kargzant? The Sun Horse? Effectively the writeup of Yelm in the RQ:G Corebook but more fleshed out I imagine?). Really can't wait for the Solar Book, it's the thing I've wanted most out of the RQ:G gameline.

Yelm has a strong history of conquering that which might be considered impure, dangerous, and terrifying. See Burburstus and the Third Stage of the 'Cosmic Justice' during the reign of Kazkurtum, pages 31-32 of the Glorious Reascent. That doesn't mean Yelm should specifically get magic for conquering monsters (if anything apparently Pelorians are terrified of Dragons, but maybe that's less because of a God Time event and more because of the Dragon Kill War, Dragons are Dragons they don't need a mythic precedent to scare the shit out of people), or Chaos for that matter. But it's thematically relevant that Yelm destroys a monster and it gets made into his throne. And the Blue Dragon that gets turned into the Oslir River, not technically by Yelm but rather his son Murharzarm but still. It's basically the Solar Emperor Job description to fight threats and then turn them into tools/subjects/allies. And where do we see another monster conquered and then turned into an accoutrement of the authority of that God? That's right! The Red Goddess and the Crimson Bat! Now we can discuss if it's cooler to turn the monster into your ride rather than your throne. But there's a similarity there all the same. It is part of Yelm's story that he conquered the Underworld but the interesting question to me is: Did he do this while grieving for his murdered son? Or was it only after reaching an accord with the Rebel Gods who submitted to his forgiveness? Can we imagine a resurgent Yelm leading the Rebel Gods as his army in conquering their way out of the Underworld? I'm going off on one but it's a fun idea to imagine him delegating to the Lightbringers and other Gods in his Underworld court giving them MMO quests before they make their great exit at The Dawn, "Orlanth, to prove your good intentions with this 'Compromise' thing I'm going to need you to bring me 10 Darkness Demon heads to make the road out of here safe for the members of my court." Anyway yeah my view is that the Yelm Imperator cult tolerates Chaos if it is made subject to Yelm. And The Red Emperor is currently doing the best job of that of any Dara Happan Emperor inside Time, through the advice and counsel of The Red Goddess. Maybe the better question is why does The Red Goddess tolerate the Solar Empire? Was it an alliance of convenience to prop up a legitimate authority against the Carmanians? Is it just the familial connection through the planets and Yelm? Is there something specific about the Dara Happan Empire that makes it a good vehicle for the Lunar Way? I'm imagining Lunar Priestesses doing apologetics for the Empire by pointing out it is a great vehicle for the spread of the Lunar Way. Once the barbarians are pacified and people aren't declaring bloody feuds over a stolen cow that gives them more space to show how nice the Teelo Norri Poor Fund is. Kind of like how Christian Writers did apologetics for the Roman Empire being the great vehicle for Christ's teaching through securing 'peace' in the known world which aided travel and communication.

Yeah I always assumed that Dara Happans don't have a specific understanding of Chaos as something super terrible bad like Theyalans and Praxians do, that doesn't mean they're cool with it as a matter of course. It's another impurity, like those awful hill barbarians who worship Yelm's murderer and also have the temerity to leave their thighs bare. That being said, I understand that if Yelm Imperator can make Chaos subject to him then it has a place in his order of things. That does not mean every one in the Yelm Imperator cult absolutely loves Chaos, they just understand that Yelm's Order on earth is so perfect (or perhaps to any of them with a better understanding of the in-time history of their own cult: perfectible). It's a massive vote of confidence in the favour of Moonson as being Yelm's viceroy on Earth that he can make even monstrosities like the Crimson Bat submit to him. What I think is important to understand, or rather for us to learn because we don't have the Solar Cult book yet, is the degree to which the present Lunar Empire Yelm Imperator cult is actually committed to maintaining Yelmic ritual purity. If most of them are illuminated then do they even bother? Does this concern some Yelm Imperator cult members? In the Empire does complete immunity to spirits of reprisal and cult restriction mean that they completely ignore the requirements of ritual purity necessary for the cult or do they comply with it through ceremonies of purification before worship on holy days? If the Gold Proxy was illuminated (and he almost certainly probably is) does he maintain ritual purity even though he doesn't have to? Signs point to yes, The Lunar Way book says it verbatim 'The Gold Proxy maintains Yelmic purity, both ritual and personal, so that the Red Emperor in Glamour does not have to.' (p. 115) So we know for a fact that Yelmic purity is still important, what we don't know is whether changes to ones outward physical appearance (for example through chaos gift) conflict with cult restrictions or spirits of reprisal. Per Jeff in this thread it seems they do not as long as they in contact with Yelm: That 'in contact with Yelm' is holding up a lot of the weight here. If the majority of the Yelm Imperator cult are illuminated, or at least the ones in important positions are then they can still be in contact with Yelm no matter how many eyes they grow. But we still know for a fact that the Gold Proxy, who is essentially the second most important Yelm Imperator priest in the entire Lunar Empire (not withstanding people with outsized influence and importance in theatres of operations like Tatius the Bright) maintains ritual and personal purity. To me this implies that irrespective of chaos features, an illuminated Yelm Imperator priest will probably still choose to maintain personal purity in their actions and conduct. As far as the Empire is concerned someone with clear chaos gifts still choosing to engage with that lifestyle of purity is a vote of confidence in the Empire's favour as truly being an Ordered society. I have to run off soon but I'd like to go into this more later. tl;dr Valid points, we need the Yelm Imperator cult writeup to see rules on ritual and personal purity in the cult restrictions/spirits of reprisal and just how far these are flouted by illuminates in the cult and whether or not that's considered a problem or not by people inside (and perhaps outside too) the cult.

Oooh I really like that. Having read Campbell I (think I know, do tell me if I'm wrong! I'm basically a baby when it comes to the inner workings of the fandom) think I know where Greg got the 'sacrificial king' stuff from since Campbell was HUGE into it in Masks of God. So it's really neat to think of Deezola as a spin on that, where the more standard mode of king sacrifice seems to be in place in some of the deeper parts of the Earth Goddess mytho-complex. At least it seemed fairly standard last I checked but it's been a while. Anyway my point is I think that's a neat idea and thank you for sharing 🙂

Oh yeah those wall friezes are crazy, I've gotten to see them at the British Museum a few times. Insane levels of hunting and desire to demonstrate strength through gratuitous lion murder. Yeah! I really like the idea of a bored Yelm noble wanting to enact parts of the young Yelm myth. He wants his own Burburstus to crush but alas his estates are just too damn peaceful! The Lunars are doing too good a job of surpressing any problems. Hunting the local wildlife just isn't cutting it for him anymore. You could go a number of directions with this, does his overworked advisor contact the PCs to smuggle some interesting monster onto the estate that the noble gets to hunt? Does disaster strike the Satrapy and the noble genuinely rises to the occasion and goes out to defeat a monster? Are the PCs dressed up as trolls (or magicked into looking like them...) and used as game? Though as funny as it is to imagine the ridiculous situation Yelmic nobles find themselves in in the Third Era and the many stressed individuals trying to please them, I do like the idea of a Yelmic trying to genuinely be like Yelm in his good aspects instead of just a figurehead. Like the (spoiler for Pegasus Plateau)

Thanks all, this is what I was wondering about. And yes the assumption was they were bad broo that were harming standard operation of the region (to put it mildly). Because kind of like OP I was wondering at what point does Lunar 'toleration' of Chaos cease and the Law start having to be enforced. Because I was wondering if the apparatus that keeps things running in the Empire is the bureacracy, and a lot of that bureacracy are made up of Yelmic nobles towards the top, but a lot of those are illuminated and more focused on dart-wars and power struggles... how do the Yelmics actually contribute to the running of the Empire? I mean I want to see it because I kind of like Yelm, hence I imagined Yelmics throwing Sunspears at problems to the citizens of the Empire. But maybe that's not how it actually works in practice, or if things have come to that point something has gone REALLY WRONG. Really curious about what non-combat magic Yelm Imperator Initiates/Priests/Rune Lords get that functionally and actually contributes to the Empire. Can they command other Solar Cults to do what they want? Is it sheer charisma, glowing radiant warmth and the light of justice emanating from them? Is it the threat of a Sunspear falling on your head? All of the above plus training in skills that make you really good at being an overseer? I get in practice most of the nuts and bolts running of the empire probably falls on the shoulders of overworked Irripi Ontor scribes writing missives to each other and filing tax reports, and when someone fails to pay taxes a talk is had about if they should dispatch a Army squad or a Tax Demon depending on the severity of taxes owed and who owes them.

I can already imagine him launching into a speech about all the nice things the Lunar taxes pay for, admitting some degree of waste in the system by the occasional greedy Satrap, but still holding up the Teelo Norri Poor Fund as a sterling example of the Lunar's civilizing ways.

Because Broos running around your Satrapy is a bad thing. The Lunar Empire might be cool with Chaos but only when it's controlled and not a threat to it's own people. My thinking is any Chaotic inside the Empire that doesn't quickly find a way to be of use to the Red Emperor and the Goddess will be dealt with harshly. Options 1, 1.5 and 2 deal with taking the Chaos under the auspice of the Empire in varying degrees of control. Option 3 is for when the other options don't work and is in line with 'Lunar heroes gaining fame by killing Vivamort cultists and smashing slave heads of Thanatar' from the Lunar Way book. I don't see why I suggested is strange, I'm just wondering how the decision about what to be done is come to. If the answer is 'depends entirely on how the Red Emperor is feeling that day/what the Satrap wants/what the local official thinks they can get away with' then that's fine. Of course maybe the Chaotic is illuminated and can prove their openess to the Lunar Way which will alter the range of options. But the reality is most Broos will be horrible suffering abominations wracked by disease who want nothing more than to share their suffering with others.

I was wondering what happens if Lunar authorities discover a band of broos in a forest within the bounds of the Empire. Do they send some Seven Mothers Missionaries to try to get them to join the cult? Or do they specifically get told to join the Danfive Xaron cult or die? Does some illuminated Lunar officer take them under their wing and keep them as a horrible chaotic warband so they can use them as a beat-stick against foreign barbarians? Does the Yelmic noble overseer of the local area just start Sunspearing them? Is there even an agreed upon procedure in the absence of an express order by the Red Emperor? I guess absent of that everything falls under the authority of the Satrap, which would then be farmed out to over-seers on the ground because the Satrap can't be everywhere at once.