Jape_Vicho

33 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

My current RQG campaign started with Broken Tower (and used the pre-gens).  Two of the players from that continued on, and stayed with the pregens (Harmast and Sorola).  To that we added:  a Balazaring mercenary (in the employ of the Ernaldori chieftain), a Grazer entertainer (with connection via mother to the Colymar), a Colymar Storm Bull initiate, a Colymar Babeester Gor initiate, and an impala rider shaman (who came to Dragon Pass to pursue some spirit-related tasks).  

7 players! Now that's a big group. You managing it good? I usually put the top on 4-5 characters. 

22 minutes ago, g33k said:

If you want some links... why not just continue the SSS characters on to the GM-Pack materials?  Just rearrange the socio-political elements, if needed.

YGWV!

That was my first idea, but then I knew that there's going to be sequels to it on the future, so I think we will continue the saga with those. Also being my first glorantha (and rpg in general) campaign I made many errors that make me kind of reluctant to continue with those characters right now. 

Wouldn't a malkioni say they are basically the same, just modified by political allegations and cultural POV?

After I have finished Six Seasons in Sartar, I'm preparing for running the "Gamemaster Adventures" of the screen pack (with as much DP stuff as I can muster from varied sources), and as of now, the one thing that gives me the most problems is the players party relation, origin and verosimilitude. As one of the best things about glorantha is the social aspect, I'm afraid I make a group of aloof vagabonds that everyone hires "just because the story says so" when there are lots of capable warriors that should appear much more reliable to the elders and nobles of sartar. 

Thinking on how to solve this, I have come to the idea of asking you guys, when you GMd or played a campaign of similar characteristics to the one I'm talking about (sort of a post-dragonrise Sartar sandbox), who where the components of the party (origin, cult, personality, etc.)? How did they met? Did they work well together? Did the GM put some "limits" as to the origin/cult of the PCs?

I think that would be very enriching and also fun to read.

Edit: BTW, at the moment the players have stated that they want to make a 1) Uzko Argan Argar trader or Zorak Zorani warrior from Dagori Inkarth 2) a baboon from the Elder Wilds that I will try to convince to at least move its origin to Prax 3) a lunar 4) a sartarite hunter and 5) still doesn't have a clue on what to make. 

Seems like neither chest, chest & abdomen or abdomen have cuirboilli, I'm guessing it's because boiled leather is completely rigid and if worn in a part of the body that is suposed to move (unlike the greaves and vambraces) it would be very uncomfortable and eventually break, therefore for the chest and abdomen it is replaced by 2 options: heavy leather is cheap and easy to make, and as it's not boiled it's not rigid, but it protects less; OTOH, light scale (I interpret it as leather scale) is made of sclaes of boiled leather, is heavier and more difficult to produce, and as the scales are tied together, they allow for movement, and they protect far more.

1 hour ago, metcalph said:

I've heard Greg suggest (take with grain of salt) that Zzabur prepared the spell and then leaked his preparations to the Fronelans so that they would respond in the only way possible - the murder of the God with Silver Feet.  Zzabur then used the resulting energies of the God's death to elevate Brithos to another plane of existence.  

Is it known what reason (even if it was just to trick the loskalmi) did Zzabur give for his plan to sink the entire region?

5 minutes ago, Mythforger said:

Another question came up for me. Flamal was killed by Zorak Zoran, Ernalda was Flamals wife at that point, right? According to RQG she is allied with Argan Argar now.

I think Argan Argar is only linked with Ernalda in Uz societies that respect the earth pantheon, so probs just Shadow Plateau (and ofc Esrolia too as they worship all of Ernalda's husbands there). So people of those cultures would likely see the connection but those outside of them not so much. 

One way would be to exile the parents and a) exile the child with them too or b) keep the child and induct them into some cult that makes him or her less likely to have children, like the humakti. 

This is kind of a cruel choice I know. 

I think the main beef between aldryami and uz is the murder of Flamal by Zorak Zoran, so maybe some kind of Flamal amulet, like a magic seed. 

In addition to that, she could teach him some "secret handshake" of sorts, like the basics of aldryami courtesy to show others of their kind that he knows of their culture and has good intentions. 

I'm currently running the Six Seasons in Sartar campaign for a group of 4, only the last season remains. It has been the first full campaign I have GMd, so it has been far from perfect, but I have learned a lot.

After we finish I think I'm going to go with a more sandboxy campaign that starts with the Colymar Campaign and later includes the Smoking Ruin and Pegasus Plateau stories. 

15 hours ago, SharpPointyStick said:

likely to start out with the quick start scenario just to get my feet wet.

A great youtube rpg talking guy, Seth Skorkowsky, has a video on it, he always offers valuable advice that can improve any adventure. I leave the link if you are interested because I definetly wish it had existed when I ran it. 

On 8/20/2020 at 8:58 AM, Sid Vicarious said:

About 18 months ago a video game was announced, but there has been bugger all about it since. The devs, Black Shamrock,  website is just as tight lipped. 

WHAT? That's amazing! Can you please indicate where can I get some info on it? 

14 hours ago, 7Tigers said:

Dundealos tribe, destroyed in 1618, will indeed be restored in 1626. A 96 page book about it is being written for french RQG version, by the end of this year. Most likely translated in english sometime in the future.

One of the illustrations shared by Studio Deadcrows, by Bernard Bittler:

That tribe seems to be very beloved by gloranthaphile writers, some months ago there was released the Valley of plenty campaign which is also centered on the Dundealos. 

3 hours ago, Jeff said:

A little nomenclature.

We have the Theyalans - this is the big linguistic-cultural group that covers much of central and southern Genertela. They include the Esrolians, the Manirians (except the Ramali), much of Ralios, southern and eastern Fronela, the Pelorian hill country, Dragon Pass, etc. They speak related languages, all descended from Stormspeech.

Orlanthi - these are Theyalans that have Orlanth as one of their main gods. Most Theyalans are Orlanthi, but in Peloria many Theyalans are now Lunars and not Orlanthi.

The Heortlings. These are the Orlanthi peoples that originated in Heortland circa 1300. They are the old Sartarites and the Hendriki. Also called Heortlander or even just Sartarite.

Tarshites. These are the people that settled northern Dragon Pass circa 1350 or so. They are the Tarshites, the Tarsh Exiles, and the Far Point and Alone tribes.

Esrolians - these are the Theyalan people of Nochet. Ernalda is the main deity and they are matriarchal. Sometimes considered Orlanthi, sometimes not. 

 

And where does the "Vingkotlings" term fit? Is it a term to refer to all the orlanthi before time or just to some of them? 

7 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Where is the map from?

I found it looking in Google images a while a go. I searched for a source but all I found were reposts on pinterest, which is a mess of a site, and can't even read the names of the authors in the image due to the low resolution. 

I don't exactly know if the term "cultural group" is correct but to clarify I'm referring to the likes of the Heortlings or the Esrolians. Those two are widely known and present clear differences in their social structures and customs, despite both being orlanthi, but a Dragon Pass map I saw put the Tarshites within an "Alakoring" group. I suppose by that that the Tarshites are culturally marked by the Dragonbreaker, but that creates me some questions. Alakoring was from Ralios, but the tarshites came from southern Peloria right? So, are all the orlanthi of Peloria (like Talastari, Brolian, Bilini, etc.) Alakorings too? What about the Orlanthi from Ralios? Is there a comprehensive list of the orlanthi cultural groups and their characteristics?

(Also, I attach the map in question)

11 hours ago, Darius West said:

Are you kidding?  That's utterly realistic.  Yes, in life as in RPGs that mirror life, you need to choose between obeying the laws and scruples of your society or being an opportunistic psychopath/narcissistic criminal who needs to be put out of everyone else's misery because you have managed to escape the normal means of social enforcement.  Orlanthi and many other cultures passionately hate and fear illumination for a very sound reason.  It promotes atrocious behavior, and the long term effects of illuminates in a society are intensely toxic. 

That is at least, questionable, and at most, just the opposite. Humans have existed way before laws, and all was fine and dandy back then (even better than now if you have a certain view of prehistory and the world).

I for one can't see the unimaginable hazards of illumination that some of you people here mention. In fact, being able to liberate the beings of chaos from it's existence of pain and hatred is a very good think, even they deserve redemption. 

Also, can't see how glorantha was perfecty happy before chaos when the own (ill) actions of the gods broke the world and made chaos almost consume it. From my point of view it is the gods who are evil.

Thanks a lot for the tips you all! Really helpful as always.

On 8/14/2020 at 8:11 PM, simonh said:

Does the character want to become illuminated, or does the player think this would be an interesting way to go? It’s not a given.

The character is a very curious and magically ambitious boy, he doesn't explicitly want to be illuminated YET (as he doesn't understand what it is) but by staring into the void after seeng the devil's face he knows he has started upon a path to something greater, and he is willing to do anything to know where it leads. Also the player likes the idea of illumination of course, as he is a fervent lunar.

On 8/14/2020 at 11:18 PM, Roko Joko said:

Ideas:

* go around to all the Darkness-related factions in the area (Cliffhome, Dagori Inkarth, Troll Woods, Shadow Plateau, Arkat's Hold, Ivory Plinth, Black Horse County) doing deeds and collecting wisdom
* undergo the troll initiation and join the cult of Kyger Litor
Neither of the above is directly mystical, but you could depict them as broadening the PC's consciousness.
* join the cult of Subere, deep in troll territory
* join the cult of Arkat, maybe through Argrath
* join the cult of Jakazeel (Spirit, Zorak Zoran) or Yanafal Tarnils (Darkness) and learn from Lunar masters
* serve Cragspider and learn from Arachne Solara, who was associated with Cragspider in earlier books, and the Black Dragon
* have crazy adventures in the underworld

Is there any book that details the Uz lands of northern DP? Maybe the Trollpack? BTW I thought Cliffhome was kinda the capital of Dagori Inkarth, or at least part of the region.

I usually create yt playlists for eachgame with various appropiate ambient sounds (forest, city, cave, fight, spirit world, etc.) and change the tune in accordance with the location. Not every DM likes to do that but I think it must be pretty immersive, and there are loads of ambience tunes on yt.

I recommend the King of Sartar book if you haven't already read it, it teaches a lot about the universe, and it's a really good book, and it's on sale. 

Also I too had the same problems with the webcomick both in Android and in windows. 

In the campaign I'm running one of my players has, through a heroquest, started on the path to illumination. The character is a sartarite child, and a darkness shaman, so he does not know anything about illumination besides what orlanthi propaganda states, and as such it's very difficult for him to directly go looking for info on illumination. As such, I was thinking of gradually introducing illuminate things through the campaign, but all I have found about it in books was a short text about the Nysalorean Riddles in, I think, the Cult Compendium, but that method looks very impersonal and not really linked with character development, and it requires a lot of work from the GM as the examples it offers are almost non existent. So I was wondering if any of you knew about some publication where this issue is adressed, as I'm sure it exists, or have any tips (like some real riddles the player has to answer or some mini-adventures that happen in dreams or something of the sort that does not rely solely on dice) 

(I was debating between asking this question in the illumination post or making a new one but as I didn't want to seem too off topic I made a new one, sorry if it should have been the other way around) (Sorry also for the bad english but it's very late here)

On 7/27/2020 at 6:33 PM, Runeblogger said:

Yes, Edge Entertainment is supposedly going to publish it in the 3rd quarter of 2020 (which means one of these days now), according to the last news they shared.

Vaya,  buenísimas noticias, no tenía ni idea ni esperanza de que fuera a salir en castellano, espero que eso haga crecer a la comunidad gloranthana hispanohablante.

8 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

How does this even work?  I thought trolls were cursed to birth trollkin, not humans. 🙂

The trollkin curse started during the Gbaji wars if I'm not mistaken, and the clan where the characters are from dates back to the Great Darkness, so it precedes the curse. In any case, the thing about the stead is more centered in the mythological side, like having an Uz as the stead's head ancestor and having close affinity with the darkness rune than to the biological "Uz mates with human and has human baby", it's weird, but doesn't strike me as impossible.

Wow, thanks a huge lot for all the responses, this forums are of immense help for gloranthan newbies.

The character in question, albeit human, comes from a family which are all troll-descendents, as one of the original members of the clan founder's ring was a troll. As such I think I will go with Kyger Litor maybe mixed with some flavour of Daka Fal, I'll study it with the player to create a good fit, and then introduce some of the spirit cults you have mentioned.

I was wondering if there has existed somewhere a cult primarily associated with darkness in which the members are shamans, as one of my players is a Sartarite shaman whose main rune is Darkness and by his backstory Daka Fal is not a perfect fit, and all darkness cults I have seen are not related to shamans/spirits (Argan Argar, Kyger Litor and Zorak Zoran are the 3 in the new edition and none fit me much for a shaman, but maybe I'm wrong). I can of course create the rules for the cult myself, I just want to know if there's something written to give some canon backstory.

I have only ran the Broken tower adventure and half of Six seasons in Sartar so I'm still a beginner, but I think that it helped a lot to play with child characters (the PCs in SSIS are so). It helped my players, as they take the role of gloranthans who don't know really much about the world, and that way I can introduce a lot of thing little by little, and also they have a very "mundane" experience, learning the very bases of gloranthan culture. Also it helped me, as it gives me time to learn about the lore on the go, as I know they are not going to ask me to make an experimental heroquest to resurrect Belintar out of nowhere. And making the PC grow together really creates a group chemistry like few other things. There are downsides OTOH, as children are less adept in combat and more vulnerable to getting killed by a bad roll, so you might have to fudge a little to not get a group of traumatized boys. 

Besides SSIS (where PCs are colymar children) there is another campaign where PCs are of a tribe I think mixed of elmalites and horse orlanthi, it's on Johnstown compendium. 

2 hours ago, Borygon said:

Belinthar being a god learner superweapon is a pretty common theory.

We probably shouldnt trust a blind men on truthfully describing what color something is.

Superweapon in that it was a creation of the god-learners, not one of them?