Jape_Vicho

This book has made me realize that the GGG is going to be even bigger than I thought, so much Chaos spells show there will be a lot of Chaos cults there too, and there are mentions to cults so small, and to various subcults, I can hardly contain the anticiation.

17 hours ago, John Biles said:

King of Sartar says every Lunar soldier was put to the blade and killed but says nothing about the treatment of non-soldier (p. 125)

The Nomads plundered for two days, then passed out drunk (p. 153)  After taking the city.

I remember being horrified when I read this. For one part, the massacre of "soldiers" (we all know that there were way more civilian converts than any pro-sartar chronicler would admit) is absolutely terrible but in line with Argrath's modus operandi and historical parallels, but even more shocking is letting the first and foremost enemies of Pavis to run rampant through it and do what they please.

And to think they only murdered lunars is incredibly naive too, one does not plunder "selectively", when an army enters a city to plunder it, there are no limits, and even less with a force that consists of an amalgamation of tribes that hate each others guts. Those 2 days may have been the worst ones in the city's history.

Of course this is my view that will most definetly contradict what happens in Jeff's campaign (that I have not yet watched)

7 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

I also don't imagine the Grantlands settlers had a good time when the tribes swept down on them (I'm assuming massacres and enslavement), but that wouldn't really be anything Argrath could be blamed for directly.

Aren't the Grantlands kinda holding on in 1625? I tried looking in the Guide but I could only find mentions that they are there. Might have missed something.

22 hours ago, Orlanthatemyhamster said:

but now they seem to have decided to return to the Sartar=good, Lunars=bad thing with a vengeance. It's a pity because it would have made it stand out from almost every other (major) RPG.

You think? In recent years there have been a lot of simpathetic sources with the lunars. Prince of Sartar for exemple takes a definitely good view on the lunars. And I dont want to make spoilers, so I won't say anything, but if you take my word for it, none of the adventures officially published for RQG show that kind of thinking (neither do any I have read from the JC).

15 minutes ago, Storm Khan said:

Fascinating dance link. On a different but still historical track, I was wondering if the Pure Horse People are modeled after the Parthians?

I think Pentans in general are more inspired in the Scythians, even though Parthians are deeply related to them too. 

Below Scythian warriors depicted on a Kul-Oba vessel and a reconstructed outfit of a Scythian found in the Issyk Kurgan, you can really picture the Luminous Stallion King in that. I think those "high hats" are also used by some mongolian peoples. 

26 minutes ago, MOB said:

Some of the cults in the The Red Book of Magic (coming soon!) are clearly up to no good. What evil magic is being done here, do you think? Art by Hazem Ameen.

They look Dara-Happan but they seem to have kind of the Peruvian look that they have in Six Ages? Or it's just my imagination?

On the ritual, those are Chaos and Light? (maybe Darkness, it's difficult to differentiate those two sometimes). By the runes I would say the good Nysalor the bright, but the effects seem to indicate some kind of undeath magic, thus Vivamort, but there is no Undeath rune in sight.

Or maybe the propaganda they send to the kings that are about to experience it. 

48 minutes ago, Psullie said:

no sorcery... ?

There was said somewhere (in the GGG topic I think) that an expansion to sorcery is being reserved for a book about the west. 

It's kinda sad, but it's also probably for the best, we can just hope to see it soon. 

On 12/9/2020 at 1:04 PM, French Desperate WindChild said:

so we have the perfect guy, haven't we ?

So it would seem... That's why it can't be. I admit I have yet to learn lots about Glorantha, but if one thing of the lore has seemed fishy to me is Sartar. In a universe so open as Glorantha, where everything has several interpretations and nothing is as good or bad as it looks at first glance, this guy just arrives to Dragon Pass, starts to act like Jesus and creates a union that benefits all the population just by showing off how good that union would be? Something doesn't add up, there has to be some dark secret about him, and if I were to look, I would do in the direction of the dragons.

20 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

1. When we rolled up Family History for our Colymar PCs, it was extremely rare for any parent or grandparent to still be alive.  Many were devoured by The Bat.  I was so shocked that my granny had survived all those disastrous battles that she is nicknamed "The Survivor".  Some of our PCs have a very high "Hate Lunar", but none, I hope, are monomaniacal psychopaths.
   (edit added) We have had many many past PCs with far far darker backstories than Argrath.
   (another edit added)  The Lunars do horrible things, but they have a philosophy, a vision, that could be used as motivation for True Believers.  I'm not seeing that for Argrath, but maybe I'm missing it?

Yeah, I know it doesn't have to be a faithful representation of average people of DP but the family events table is absolutely devastating especially for sartarites and tarshites, in the games I've run no one yet has had all their family survive to the start date, and that means A LOT of characters with hate towards the Lunar Empire. And well, they might not grow to become Argrath, but that isn't because they wouldn't try; Argrath is a man born under a certain star, and like Achilles, his glories, struggles and eventual failure are inevitable and necessary, that is I think the real difference between run-of-the-mill lunar-hating sartarites and Argrath.

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

Is it all new spells, or does it modify the magic systems as well?

From what I've seen on TW, I think it might also expand on some magic elements other than spells, like magic components (maybe an expansion to alchemy), amulets, enchanted items or places, spirits, and other magical phenomena.

My greatest issue with magic in RQG so far is that my players have a difficult time remembering and thus using their spells, I would love if this book helped solve that problem, like giving some sort of easy to make spell table with info on cost and effect .

Cost money, that is.

Remember that it is also said to be "sacred to the Maran Gor cult" in addition to being sacred for the Tusk Riders too. Maybe it's too powerful for a Command Cult Spirit, but what about being a Spirit Cult? 

On 11/13/2020 at 9:03 PM, Trotsky said:

Here we go - next part of the campaign...

Link to Google Drive Document

Sorry if this has been asked before, but, where are the player's "figures" (markers maybe? I dont really know how to refer to those in english) from? Made by you maybe? They look terrific and after my experience today in a complex encounter with many enemies and directions, I'm starting to think that I should use maps and markers to help me and the players.

In the Cult Compendium it is described a ritual of Daka Fal celebrated by some mercenary baboons (pgs. 61-66), and it speaks of the Greater Darkness, so it might be useful for this question. 

The baboons are organized around a shaman of their kind, who starts the ritual by throwing something into a bonefire wich makes the flames green and creates some green coals that are buried there. At nightfall, the flames have died, the baboons smear themselves in the ashes, some drink spirits and set unlit torches aroud the camfire. They then start to dance, chant, clash weapons and then fall to the ground and cry like babies. Then 2 masked baboons appear; one wears a red mask and a sattlesnake tail, the other a yellow mask and a staff topped by horns. These two figures start acting and telling the stories of the baboons during the Darkness. Spirits start appearing amongst the living there, hungry of flesh, and they attack the red-masked baboon and kill him. All baboons seem terrified and cower behind the yelow-masked one, who starts chanting, and with words of power traps the spirits in the bonfire. He then walks to the dead baboon and brings him back to life. Then all baboons cheer and dance and celebrate until the sun comes out. The shaman speaks then to the man who tells the tale, and gives him one of the coals of the beginning, now transformed into a "nut" of sorts, which gives the spell Summon ancestor.

I don't know if the first part has some symbolic significance or if it's just part of the ritual for utilitarian purpouses. The second part, the dancing, clashing and cyring probably tells of the baboon's life before they met Grandfather Baboon, maybe they fought amongst themselves and ended up broken. The 2 masked figures are said to be Granfather Baboon and an unnamed "baboon's founder" (maybe he is the one who is Granfather Baboon and Daka Fal is not the same as GB as I had thought?), who's who is left unanswered. The baboons then proceed to tell of how, during the GD, DF came to them and taught them many things, which is why they follow and honor him. The next part has to have some connection with the mytheme of Granfather Mortal's death; one of the masked baboons (the red one) is murdered, and the rest are shocked and terrified of that. The other masked one (the yelow one) then magically commands the ghosts and traps them in some sort of magical stones, and then resucitates the dead shaman. One could say Red-mask was Granfather Mortal, as he is killed by Death according to some myths, but he usually is said to have died before the GD, so it could be that DF presented himself to the baboons once he was already dead, and that is why Yelow-mask is not afraid of the murder, has control over the spirits and is able to resurrect Red-mask. I personally favour the second theory.

10 hours ago, Trotsky said:

 

Well the adventurers never got around to examining any dwarf corpse…

They made so much noise that an Iron dwarf came to investigate. They soon realised that they couldn’t communicate and tried to appease the dwarf by showing them a Mostali device they had plundered from a previous chamber. Well that did not go down well! I thought we were set for a tense fight in the confined space of the Mostali chambers – but it did not pan out that way. The two warriors of the group – an Orlanthi and a Humakt saw that behind the dwarf there was a deep shaft containing some strange constructions – so they charged him. Using the knockback rules they caused a 3m knockback. The Dwarf tried to prevent himself falling - but failed to stop himself being knocked down the shaft – to his doom. They left the corpse in the bottom of the shaft for the trolls who they were working for – although the Orlanthi warrior requested they throw the dwarf’s iron armour out their cave when they had ‘finished’ with the corpse. He is hoping it will be there the next day.

The main thing they learnt from their investigation of a Mostali construction is the stuff in there is really weird and it is better not to touch things (although I am not sure how much they have taken that message to heart…they know what I am talking about)

Is that from a written adventure or just made up by you? It looks really cool. 

May I recommend some things from the experience I had running it? 

3 hours ago, lordabdul said:

I don't think anybody is saying that. Sorcerers actually tend to be super bad-ass and super powerful. I think what we're saying is that sorcerers don't routinely improvise spells on the go. I think they go adventuring with a whole bunch of stuff prepared in advance. IMO, "battle wizards" tend to have an arsenal of trinkets and artifacts that contain monstrous spells prepared and grown over days and weeks and months, ready to be unleashed on unsuspecting enemies. And don't forget Lunar magic benefits from the glowspots. Of course, YGMV and all that jazz.

By "powerful" I meant combat powerful, that is what I understood from some comments, that sorcerers weren't as combat powerful as priests or shamans. But yeah your argument sounds reasonable. 

I don't get why some of you say sorcery isn't powerful in the lore, isn't the lunar college of magic a sorcery school? And on the field they are said to be like one of the most terrible military units on all Glorantha, only able to be magically fought when Argrath creates his own sorcery school. Also I think the westerners have pretty powerful field sorcerer units too, Sir Narib was one of them, if I'm not mistaken.

I have always imagined the sorcery as by far the hardest of the 3 magical arts to master, and perhaps the less directly offensive, but in my mind a well learned and disciplined sorcerer is able to do things rune lords or great shamans cannot even imagine, given the freedom and boundless power that sorcery gives. 

Also I too find weird that loskami do that kind of criptogodlearner kinda things, but well, you know what the rokari say, hrestolism was at fault for the creation of that philosophical monster all along. 

1 hour ago, Hteph said:

When my players come across an Clay Mostali corpse (an Openhandist that died alone in a cave workshop ages ago) I described it as a wrinkled doll filled with lumpy straw and odd pieces of broken glass bulbs and corroded metal clasps. Yes they just had to poke the corpse until it fell apart to be sure it was dead.

I LOVE that idea, it reminds me of Junji Ito's House of puppets manga. They look organic when they are alive but that illussion fades when their energy returns to the World Machine, and their bodies are revealed for what they really are, mechanical constructs. Now imagine that the adventurers are exploring an abandonned mostali outpost and they stumble upon a "corpse disposal chamber" just filled with those things. It might not be (at all) canon but it certainly is cool.

7 hours ago, Trotsky said:

I have a feeling the players in our game will want to 'utilise' the body somehow - this is the Bronze Age after all and 'stuff' is not in abundance...

-This iron sword? Funny story, it was once a mostali. 

I imagine finding a dead mostali might be even more uncommon than a live one, as they probably send parties to find and retrieve the bodies of their fallen brethren. 

If I understood the lore correctly, most (more than 90%) mostali in 1625 are "racially" clay mostali and a big minority of iron mostali (less than a quarter I imagine), so almost all of of the other minerals are just clay mostali posing as other caste, because they need those castes to function. Only iron mostali are found in great enough numbers for their caste to not have any dwarfs among them. 

Also I always thought that the "euphoric reaction" that mostali meat gives to trolls was a reference to the liking that dwarfs have for beer in other universes. 

On 11/4/2020 at 12:49 AM, John Biles said:

Probably the same reason that Jar-Eel the Razoress, most noted for murdering the Pharoah, has Harmony, when she leaves a trail of bodies in her wake.

 

Well but that actually makes sense, because his Disorder creates Harmony, in the same way Death creates Life, and Sedenya's Chage works towards the definitive Stasis. 

(JK. Unless...)

May I ask why is the Troop identified with Harmony? Maybe I have interpreted their lore wrong but to me they always looked pretty Disorder.

In the rumors list of the GameMater Adventures book (pg. 72), one of the rumors is that "The trolls have successfully ended the Curse of Kin and are about to re-impose the Shadow Tribute on Dragon Pass", said rumor is marked with "The rumor is generally true but aslso has a substantial false component".

I imagine the false component might be the readyness of the Uz to attack right now, they have yet to prepare, but the connection with the caravan is pretty intuitive.

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

Note that the dragon averted the Crimson Bat prior to the use of the dragonewts as utuma storm troopers. Might have been the Inhuman King upping the ante for the mercenary fee, or fulfilling an older obligation before lending his aid to the Lunars.

I know very little about Sartar and his bloodline, but I have always suspected that his legacy holds many mysteries even to the greatest sartarites of 1625.

If the Crimson Bat had been allowed to unleash his full might against Boldhome, the city would not just have fallen, it would have been completely annihilated. Maybe the dragons didn't want the lunars to find something hidden deep within the city that would have been visible once it was destroyed; maybe they considered that the existence of the city, as the magical beacon and seat of sartirite power that it is, was needed for their plan for the world, while it's fall and occupation by the lunars wasn't meaningful enough, elder races, and especially dragonewts, have different view of time; maybe they were just upholding to a pact made to Sartar. 

In short, I think the true dragon came down and fought the CB because the dragons, for some reason or another, didn't want to see Boldhome turn to ash and melted stone. 

Also during the siege of Boldhome, in which they participaded, a dragon descended and fought for the sartarites, so they actually fought on the opposing side to a true dragon. Puzzling. 

In PoS they are also seen fighting for the lunars in the battle for the cradle, and AFAIK, there are no dragonewt settlements near Zola Fel, so they went much outside their homeland to do this. 

It's also worthy of note that there are many "rogue" dragonewts, maybe those are the ones to be hired as merks. 

But as the Dragonewt Dream, the most probable answer is that it's just mysterious reasons incomprehensible to humans. 

Not a theory about the world but about the game. 

The existence of a (very beautiful) map that depicts the southern part of the Empire that comes with the Gamemaster screen pack means that a source and/or campaign book centered around that area will be released. Which would make me the happiest as that's my favorite part of Glorantha and criminally underdeveloped by earlier editions.