John Biles

Session 2: Okay, so the PCs joined the Blue Quartz and their allies the Green Snakes and fought some Tusk Riders. The PCs invoked the Harmony rune to help the Clans cooperate, invoked the Man Rune to have some wandering trolls show up and eat some of the Boars of the Tusk Riders. And used the Air rune to hamper enemy missile fire. The PCs had a fight with a bunch of footmen and that went reasonably well, save for Thumpson, the Wind Lord, forgetting to use his Sandals of Darkness. Afterwards, they went to go check on the boys and see if they made it to Uncle's Lodge, only to find that a group of outlaws had captured the boys and planned to haul them off to sell as slaves. An intense argument ensued in which the PCs decided to send Sanria, Priestess of Ernalda, to negotiate. She scored a critical on her diplomatic roll and talks them into accepting a small fee for 'protecting the boys during their initiation' along with a bath and some food and moving on. It was the greatest moment of the night. We then skimmed over Sea Season in which they helped out with the sowing of crops and other clan tasks, then in Fire Season, they headed for Clearwine to trade loot from the Tusk Riders for Clearwine and special seeds for next year. They encountered an area of burned chaos plants; the Trickster took some seeds because, well, Trickster. They then met a patrol which warned them that the Oak Leaves Clan was having huge internal discord and they might want to detour. Instead, they went in and found that a marriage to reconcile two clans had been disrupted because the bride was pregnant by a guy from a third clan. The Ernalda Priestess talked them into reconciling and bringing a lawsuit against the third clan. They beat some Stone Crabs, but the Trickster used the seeds as part of one of his flustering attacks. This will come back. Then they reached Clearwine and the Issaries they escorted made the deals. The Priestesses asked the Ernalda Priestess and the Trickster to be part of a small Heroquest. Because I had not planned enough, Ernalda now has a daughter named Cynthia, who they saved after Eurmal lost her in the woods. They got lost trying to find her and had to save Barntar from an alligator. They talked the alligator into trading Barntar from fish; the Trickster dove into the water, caught a bunch in his mouth (he's a troll) and spat them into the alligator's mouth. Greatest Troll moment. They found Cynthia and the new plant and brought her home. A very simple quest. They started home and had to fight chaos vines where the Trickster used those seeds. They burned the vines and hoped they'd fixed it and we ran out of time. That's where we stopped.

Someone has to have theorized Nyzsalor used Thed's aid to cause the Curse of Kin as Thed's revenge on Kygor Litor. And connected, that his previous incarnation as Rashoran was infected with Chaos when the people who opened the way to Chaos murdered him, thus producing Gbaji. (Perhaps his ritual murder was part of opening the way to Chaos - Illuminating a patch of the world so it no longer resisted Chaos.)

The gods being real and the gods being shaped by human belief are not on the same axis. They can be both. My own line of thought is that humanity didn't create the gods; they existed before Time, but without time, they couldn't be the kind of solid, locked down beings that time requires. And they remain beings who are in a sense, living probabilities rather than living certainties and thus remain subject to change because of the reciprocal interaction between them and believers, whose beliefs lock them down by re-enacting specific versions of the myths in a given location. Think of it as quantum metaphysics. But there are limits to what belief can do without pushing too far, as shown by the Godlearners. Not every possibility is equally true and some are rare, high energy states and when the state crashes, that energy may well go into you. One clan sees the Little Sun as Elmal. Another sees it as Yelmalio, a third thinks they're brothers. That's not too far. But the one who says Yelmalio is a potato with delusions of grandeur and that Mostal is Uleria's husband is probably in trouble.

The Party, all young adults initiated two years earlier: 1. Robby Flay, Troll Trickster searching to recreate the perfect meal he had during his initiation 2. Mercutio, A Seshnelan whose village was wiped by raiders and ended up in Dragon Pass as a priest of Lhankor Mhy (home brew class posted on this forum.) His purified grimoire gave him reskinned Magic Missile as an at-will, which he used a LOT. 3. Bill, a Duck Humakti whose father, a great Duck General, was slain by the Lunars during the Duck Hunt 4. Sanria, an Elf raised by the Ernalda Priestesses, who is now an Ernalda Priestess 5. Thumpson, Half-Orc Wind Lord, who was found in a mysterious cosmic egg as a baby and no one knows what a 'half-orc' is, since he seems to be entirely present. What ensued was a scenario where everyone tried to figure out their abilities and I, the DM, screwed up and had made encounters too brutal for them, though technically not overpowered. I had created weaker Tusk Riders, but they came in a pair of a level 1 troop and a large level 2 troop. So two riders and two boars and that was far more brutal than I realized. The PCs had to scout in the woods around the men's initiation for the year, protecting five boys. They stumbled on the tracks of two tusk riders and their mounts, who they followed and ambushed. Sandals of Darkness proved a brutal power for Thumpson, as he basically vanished just before the attack and on round 1, cut one of the riders in half. A brutal fight ensued in which we learned: The lower access to healing was brutal. The trickster, the windlord, and the humakti all got knocked out at least once. Feckless strike is a really good power. Tricksters in general seem very effective. The Earth Priestess basically sucked. Possibly none of us understood how to use her, but she was mostly worthless unless she used a daily. She was awesome at negotiations, though (Charisma 18 and a +3 relevant background.) All the other PCs did well, but I'd made the encounters too hard. They did win, alert the Blue Quartz Clan, and get help from another clan; next time, I'm going to add a healing oriented NPC (a reskinned cleric of Chalanna Arroy) to help them and avoid any large creatures until they have more HP.

Bat-whispering is a pretty good description for what the Bat-handlers do and I can totally see that basically being how it works. Going back to the original topic of this - Illumination is a cheat code that lets you abuse divine power. Nothing could be more in the spirit of illumination than being illuminated, initiating to Storm Bull, then using chaos detection to have sexy hookups with Chaos creatures. Sure, this means you're occulted and doing wrong, but doing wrong seems much more common than doing it right.

I hate Tex-Mex food; much of it makes me ill just to look at it. If I was illuminated, I would stop hating it, but I would still be able to tell the difference between that and Italian cuisine. It's not that an illuminate thinks they're the *same* in every way. It's that he stops hating chaos (or law, if he was an illuminate chaos critter.)

People incarnating Jaldon can raid Sartar, so I would assume Waha could ride you all the way to plunder Glamour if you didn't die first.

In the real world, branding has been around since 2700 BC. So it makes sense to me that it would exist in Glorantha.

The black ops wing of Project Blue Book.

Yelmalions on a heroquest about Ernalda's days with Yelm who mistake the whole thing for a kidnapping.

It is a great myth. The term 'Pilgrimage of Grace' in English history, however, refers to angry Catholic peasants revolting against the Reformation and then getting killed by Henry VIII.

I'd suggest that the closer you get to the exact frontier or beyond, the less control the Emperor has except in the vague sense that if he gets interested in the Po-Dunk clan's Seven Mother missionaries south of Wilmskirk, he can have a big influence while his eye is focused there. Being missionairies, some don't even operate inside the Empire. Some past face of the Emperor set the theology but right now, he's too busy brooding and singing Suspicious Minds to care.

Now imagining a young Argath painting anti-Lunar slogans on the walls of Pavis and a Lunar minor officer comes and corrects his writing.

Like Ramona Quimby, star of her own book series.

Make it a former tax collecting station from the period of trolls charging Orlanthi taxes for protection. You could find ancient weapons, armor and ancient coins as treasure, troll tax records and darkness creatures who still hang out here. I love the idea of a big 'poster' of the Great Old One (a big rectangular hunk of stone with carved art)

That's part of the premise of an ongoing fanfic series of mine.

Pomatoes would probably cause him to immolate.

By the Guide - Fonrit Kralorela East Islands, home to the goddess of chili peppers, Orandaliel

In Citizens of the Lunar Empire (a Jonstown Compendium product which i super-recommend), the average city person lives in a multi-story apartment and business complex with a bar that also serves hot food and it's one of two places to get your grain dole (the other is a baker). You have paperwork that indicates the level your family is getting and the bar tracks how much everyone in the building has used each week; you can also buy things with cash.

The only mention of them in the Guide is Fonrit.

The Solar myth of potatoes would be that they were the result of Lodril crashing into the Earth and surrendering to the lusts of the Earth Goddesses, thus engendering the whole family of the root vegetables, the favored foods of lowly peasants and too unclean for the noble leaders of the Solars.

https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/lunar-imperial-finances/ A Talent = 300 Lunars.

That's the scam which keeps Dara Happa in line. But in practice, Yelm isn't really in charge of anything and certainly the Red Emperor is not really taking orders from Yelm or his cult. The Lunar cults control the Empire and the Red Emperor is closer to them than to Yelm. But this isn't the first time a cuckoo took over the Dara Happans as the Draconic Emperor pulled pretty much the same scam.

Dara Happans basically lump Chaos in with the Orlanthi and other unruly folk.But also, Yelm is basically the Red Goddess' flunky at this point. Humakt just wants to stab and isn't too picky on the morality of it.

Before Sheng Seleris kills him the first time, the Red Emperor pretty much just reincarnates. After the brutal metaphysical damage inflicted by Sheng, he's now a soul chunk that joins with different people, like Belintar, carrying the accumulated memories and central goal of the Red Emperor but it's also affected by its new host. Like a Star Trek Trill.