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Kallyr’s light bringer quest


Stephen L

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1 hour ago, DrGoth said:

Does that mean the Red Emperor is part of the cosmic order? So when he goes missing something is out of whack?

Or to look at it another way, if both are gone, neither is needed any more?

Or, to put it yet a third way, the Emperor and his Shadow need to be reconciled, and since Moonson has shown a real reluctance to embrace Sheng and Sheng likewise (I envision Argrath going "Now kiss" at Molarisor), then you need to use alternate means to reunite the two. Like cannibalism. 

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Though a Lunar through and through, she is also a human being.

"I just read an article in The Economist by a guy who was riding around with the Sartar rebels, I mean Taliban," -Greg Stafford, January 7th, 2010

Eight Arms and the Mask

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Would it make sense for a Lhankor Mhy priest to attempt a version of the Lightbringers Quest in order to retrieve Elasa, the Light of Inspiration? He's actually looking for lost knowledge , taken away by Thanatari cultists. So this would be the LBQ from Lhankor's POV.  🤔

Read my Runeblog about RuneQuest and Glorantha at: http://elruneblog.blogspot.com.es/

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4 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

In Glorantha today, the Red Emperor embodies Yelm Imperator.

If you kill him, you bring back the Darkness, with Chaos following on its heels.

At first members of the Storm Tribe rejoice. And then they weep. And then they must atone.

DO NOT TRUST THE CHIEF PROPAGANDA OFFICER OF THE LUNAR EMPIRE, FOLKS

But more seriously, I wonder if that's what could happen in a parallel history of Dragon Pass where the Lunars win? (similar to the one Greg supposedly wanted to write) It would kind of reflect how the Sartarites had to endure the Windstop before prevailing... that is: in this parallel history, the Red Emperor is killed, which potentially throws all of Genertela out of whack (as opposed to the Windstop, which only affected parts of Dragon Pass), and then the Lunars, with newly found allies who want to restore the world order, bring a new Emperor, or even some other, newer, figure, and eventually prevail?

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3 hours ago, Eff said:

then you need to use alternate means to reunite the two. Like cannibalism. 

I was thinking more of an intervention, where they show up for a battle, but behind the hill there's only 2 chairs, a bunch of delegates from Holy Country, Kralorela, Fonrit, etc..., and a big sign that says "SIT DOWN, WE HAVE TO TALK".

Alternatively, you know how romantic comedy movies always start with the 2 main characters hating each other? Yeah, in Glorantha, rom-coms are super extreme.

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2 hours ago, Runeblogger said:

Would it make sense for a Lhankor Mhy priest to attempt a version of the Lightbringers Quest in order to retrieve Elasa, the Light of Inspiration? He's actually looking for lost knowledge , taken away by Thanatari cultists. So this would be the LBQ from Lhankor's POV.  🤔

In one way, this is even the standard opening move of the LBQ - it's how Lhankor Mhy ends up with the Lightbringer party in the first place.

In another way, it would be a decidedly non-standard move - there's already a regular quest for it ( https://kingofdragonpass.fandom.com/wiki/Lhankor_Mhy_Finds_the_Truth ) which is probably much less difficult. 

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5 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

In Glorantha today, the Red Emperor embodies Yelm Imperator.

If you kill him, you bring back the Darkness, with Chaos following on its heels.

If we kill him, surely that just means he wasn't the REAL emperor any longer? That couldn't happen to the REAL emperor, right? You should thank us for unmasking him, honestly!

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45 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

In one way, this is even the standard opening move of the LBQ - it's how Lhankor Mhy ends up with the Lightbringer party in the first place.

In another way, it would be a decidedly non-standard move - there's already a regular quest for it ( https://kingofdragonpass.fandom.com/wiki/Lhankor_Mhy_Finds_the_Truth ) which is probably much less difficult. 

Yeah, I know, but... 🤔  What myth would you choose to play provided...
1) Your PCs are: 1 Orlanthi, 1 Vingan, 1 Humakti, 1 Lodrili, 1 Daka Fali and an Aldryami?
and
2) The lost knowledge was stolen by Thanatari cultists after sucking the memories of 3 of the PCs.
?

Read my Runeblog about RuneQuest and Glorantha at: http://elruneblog.blogspot.com.es/

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8 hours ago, Darius West said:

Well, given there is no other way of resurrecting someone dead for more than a week, you save the LBQ for someone important/skilled enough to warrant the risk.

But given the LBQ is about restoring the Cosmic Order, not resurrection, why would a clan or even a tribe risk such in an attempt to bring back person X?  Will your clan or tribe even know how that person fits into the Cosmic Order?  I think your clan would have to be desperate to attempt it - on a path of Doom - and feel that only person X can save us.  The risk though is that person X may have nothing to do with the Cosmic Order.  Maybe it was actually person Y, the dire foe of your clan, and your clan's Doom is part of the Cosmic Order...  

Most likely the attempt will result in the loss of your clan's treasures (you have to arm the questers after all), possibly its wyter, and the questers themselves.  If the questers do succeed, they are unlikely to get person X, but instead the cosmos will push forward whatever power is currently weakest in the world to compensate, and that could be anything.

If you really want to bring back person X after 7 days (and they've entered whatever afterlife was in store for them), the three ways that make the most sense (assuming person X is not trapped in some foe's Hell) are:

  • find a shaman to go and search the designated afterlife and convince person X's soul and their deity to let them return.
  • pray to the deity to let person X's soul return as an allied spirit
  • start a hero cult to the person and encourage the greater deity to let them return 
7 hours ago, DrGoth said:

Does that mean the Red Emperor is part of the cosmic order?

Certainly does!  And it was proven at the Battle of Castle Blue (and in his subsequent returns as well).

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5 hours ago, Runeblogger said:

Would it make sense for a Lhankor Mhy priest to attempt a version of the Lightbringers Quest in order to retrieve Elasa, the Light of Inspiration?

He did retrieve (and married) Elasa.  As this is part of what was done, it is part of what is repeated each Sacred Time.  No need for some additional LBQ to do so.

Cults of Prax p.73 "When they returned from their successful quest, Lhankor Mhy married his quest object, and all knowledge was his forever."

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2 hours ago, Runeblogger said:

Yeah, I know, but... 🤔  What myth would you choose to play provided...
1) Your PCs are: 1 Orlanthi, 1 Vingan, 1 Humakti, 1 Lodrili, 1 Daka Fali and an Aldryami?
and
2) The lost knowledge was stolen by Thanatari cultists after sucking the memories of 3 of the PCs.
?

I hope we will get a lot of room for scaling of heroquests when the rules arrive. Doing a full LBQ is ridiculously demanding and dangerous (and has been done, what, 4-5 times in history depending on how you count?), and your PCs likely aren't such bigtime heroes. Even the SLBQ is obviously a giant deal, given that Kallyr did it with thousands of supporters and still failed miserably. You need some very lightweight variant if PCs are going to try it. 

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1 hour ago, Stephen L said:

And are we so sure its the parallel history where the Lunars win?

I like it when I meet other people who remember the Boldhome stele.

(Guide to Glorantha, Volume 2, Appendix J, p.744)

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1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

I hope we will get a lot of room for scaling of heroquests when the rules arrive. Doing a full LBQ is ridiculously demanding and dangerous (and has been done, what, 4-5 times in history depending on how you count?), and your PCs likely aren't such bigtime heroes. Even the SLBQ is obviously a giant deal, given that Kallyr did it with thousands of supporters and still failed miserably. You need some very lightweight variant if PCs are going to try it. 

(I hope I'm not derailing the OP too much with this. :P ).  My initial plan was to have the characters help the Lhankor Mhy priest through the quest to regain their lost memories with a "this world" heroquest, which would then take them serendipitously to the Dyskund Caverns as "the Underworld" part of the quest.

2 hours ago, jajagappa said:

He did retrieve (and married) Elasa.  As this is part of what was done, it is part of what is repeated each Sacred Time.  No need for some additional LBQ to do so.

Cults of Prax p.73 "When they returned from their successful quest, Lhankor Mhy married his quest object, and all knowledge was his forever."

OK, but isn't the annual LBQ done at the Orlanth/Lightbringer temples much less risky than usual? Since that sort of heroquest focuses on the community,'s wellbeing for the next year, I doubt that any priests would be OK with jeopardizing it by including some adventurers' special needs in it?

Read my Runeblog about RuneQuest and Glorantha at: http://elruneblog.blogspot.com.es/

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24 minutes ago, Runeblogger said:

OK, but isn't the annual LBQ done at the Orlanth/Lightbringer temples much less risky than usual?

There's a reason everyone participates in it!  How well you do will determine the omens/success for your clan/tribe/culture for the next year (and actually more than the omens - really, it's whether the cosmic order holds for the next year).  And you are correct that it's unlikely to include some adventurer's special needs.

My point re: LM/Elasa is that no special quest to rescue her is needed - she was brought back, therefore the annual Sacred Time rites incorporate this as part of the ritual.  

The question may be: why is a special quest needed?   

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1 hour ago, Runeblogger said:

OK, but isn't the annual LBQ done at the Orlanth/Lightbringer temples much less risky than usual? Since that sort of heroquest focuses on the community,'s wellbeing for the next year, I doubt that any priests would be OK with jeopardizing it by including some adventurers' special needs in it?

I would barely count that as a heroquest - it's more like a this-world ritual/mystery-play, staged to succeed but without much of a direct payoff (apart, of course, from minor stuff like helping to renew the entire cosmos for one more year). 

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15 hours ago, jajagappa said:

But given the LBQ is about restoring the Cosmic Order, not resurrection, why would a clan or even a tribe risk such in an attempt to bring back person X?  Will your clan or tribe even know how that person fits into the Cosmic Order?  I think your clan would have to be desperate to attempt it - on a path of Doom - and feel that only person X can save us.  The risk though is that person X may have nothing to do with the Cosmic Order.  Maybe it was actually person Y, the dire foe of your clan, and your clan's Doom is part of the Cosmic Order...  

Desperate people do stupid things.  Do they seriously need more motive than that?  Do we care about the cosmic balance?  Huh?  What's that?  We want our guy with the 450% Tend Herd skill back, so we can have lots of cows again.  Since he died, unretrieved, in a fight on the way to a foreign market, it as if the sun has gone out on our clan.

15 hours ago, jajagappa said:

  Most likely the attempt will result in the loss of your clan's treasures (you have to arm the questers after all), possibly its wyter, and the questers themselves.  If the questers do succeed, they are unlikely to get person X, but instead the cosmos will push forward whatever power is currently weakest in the world to compensate, and that could be anything.

LOL, agreed.  It is a desperate move, but again, desperate people do stupid things.

15 hours ago, jajagappa said:

If you really want to bring back person X after 7 days (and they've entered whatever afterlife was in store for them), the three ways that make the most sense (assuming person X is not trapped in some foe's Hell) are:

  • find a shaman to go and search the designated afterlife and convince person X's soul and their deity to let them return.
  • pray to the deity to let person X's soul return as an allied spirit
  • start a hero cult to the person and encourage the greater deity to let them return 

Certainly does!  And it was proven at the Battle of Castle Blue (and in his subsequent returns as well).

1) Not everyone has shamans, and such an act is not covered in RQG, even though HQ might manage it pretty easily.

2) Is it really the same as having them back though?  Sure it may be their spirit, but do they still have 450% Tend Herd?

3) This is a decent idea, but will this new hero cult actually have access to the secrets of the hero?  That sounds like a hero quest to me.

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14 minutes ago, Darius West said:

1) Not everyone has shamans, and such an act is not covered in RQG, even though HQ might manage it pretty easily.

Well neither is the LBQ though - until we get actual Heroquest rules for RQG (or indeed RQ) saying that a particular effect of hero questing is or is not covered in RQG is kind of moot.

I'm curious as to why it's apparently so easy to come back to life in 13G compared to what is suggested above - I thought coming back to life was one of the first tricks any Hero worth the capitalisation learned.

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On 6/22/2020 at 8:04 PM, jajagappa said:

If you really want to bring back person X after 7 days (and they've entered whatever afterlife was in store for them), the three ways that make the most sense (assuming person X is not trapped in some foe's Hell) are:

  • find a shaman to go and search the designated afterlife and convince person X's soul and their deity to let them return.
  • pray to the deity to let person X's soul return as an allied spirit
  • start a hero cult to the person and encourage the greater deity to let them return 

Also: it's not a detriment that there is some consequence in Glorantha. Some things should give people pause and consider the risks involved.

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12 hours ago, GAZZA said:

Well neither is the LBQ though - until we get actual Heroquest rules for RQG (or indeed RQ) saying that a particular effect of hero questing is or is not covered in RQG is kind of moot.

I'm curious as to why it's apparently so easy to come back to life in 13G compared to what is suggested above - I thought coming back to life was one of the first tricks any Hero worth the capitalisation learned.

13th Age Glorantha PCs are assumed to be people on the Hero track.  Some dude with 450% Tend Herd probably is not.

 

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10 hours ago, John Biles said:

13th Age Glorantha PCs are assumed to be people on the Hero track.  Some dude with 450% Tend Herd probably is not.

Meaning only combat based characters can be Heroes? That seems somewhat unfortunate. Or meaning that only combat based Heroes can easily return to life?

Either way I'm not exactly sure how they're pulling that off to be honest; shamans in RQG have some capability to self resurrect, but I don't know how the seven day limit can be bypassed, and the 13G method even works for Humakti - of course I'm not saying that because 13G does it so should RQG (or Quest Worlds), I'm just noting that other than the LBQ I'm not sure how many hero quests there are that can pull this off. Perhaps it shouldn't be as easy as 13G makes it seem, but unfortunately that means that Harrek and Jar-Eel are just one lucky trollkin slinger critical or two away from death.

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16 minutes ago, GAZZA said:

Meaning only combat based characters can be Heroes? That seems somewhat unfortunate. Or meaning that only combat based Heroes can easily return to life?

Either way I'm not exactly sure how they're pulling that off to be honest; shamans in RQG have some capability to self resurrect, but I don't know how the seven day limit can be bypassed, and the 13G method even works for Humakti - of course I'm not saying that because 13G does it so should RQG (or Quest Worlds), I'm just noting that other than the LBQ I'm not sure how many hero quests there are that can pull this off. Perhaps it shouldn't be as easy as 13G makes it seem, but unfortunately that means that Harrek and Jar-Eel are just one lucky trollkin slinger critical or two away from death.

I think it's a lot harder to do the level of great deeds a Hero should do if you are mainly focused on mundane skills, though of course, the Brave Little Tailor is a counter-example of exactly that from real life myth.

But also, if someone is really a Hero, they probably are going to outgrow the village they started in.  Someone with 450% Tend Herd who is a Hero is going to end up doing things like saving the kingdom's cattle from a plague.  Not sticking around some village.

 

 

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23 hours ago, GAZZA said:

Well neither is the LBQ though - until we get actual Heroquest rules for RQG (or indeed RQ) saying that a particular effect of hero questing is or is not covered in RQG is kind of moot.

I'm curious as to why it's apparently so easy to come back to life in 13G compared to what is suggested above - I thought coming back to life was one of the first tricks any Hero worth the capitalisation learned.

A fair point.  Shamans can come back from the dead via self-resurrection, but not every hero knows that trick or has access to it.  Instead heroes had a "heroic escape" skill in the boardgame, but that implies that they were somehow able to win their way back from a situation that appeared fatal, not necessarily that they came back from the dead.  The story from the RQ2 companion about Sir Ethilrist and Keener Than in the Hungry Jack is my go-to example of heroic escape.

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48 minutes ago, John Biles said:

But also, if someone is really a Hero, they probably are going to outgrow the village they started in.  Someone with 450% Tend Herd who is a Hero is going to end up doing things like saving the kingdom's cattle from a plague.  Not sticking around some village.

I think Harmast is Glorantha's ur-Small Hero in most estimations. He does all these big things, but he's still basically a farmer who goes home and plows his fields.

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There are three known ways of coming back from the dead:

1. Resurrection / Seal Soul (I think there is one other) - this takes the person's could from the Path of the Dead, before it reaches the Courts of Judgement. Seven days to do it. Over seven days,  gone. Relife sickness can be a resulting adventure hook (Sartar:KoH page 148)

A shaman can go and fetch the soul from the Path of the Dead, before it reaches the Courts of Judgement. (as above).

2. Self Resurrection - Leaving the path of the Dead using a back door:

A. Shamanic Self resurrection (RQG page 361). The shaman being a master of spirits can learn how to do this and break the seven day barrier. They know a hiding place on the path of the dead and can conceal their spirit for a season while they muster their energies to return or the back door off the Path is long and arduous (a season). As they get better at this, they get quicker.

B. Non-shaman can learn this from a heroquest, some details in The Courts of Silence (Arcane Lore page 85) and So, You Want to Raise the Dead? (page 105). You learn the back door from your pantheon's psychopomp (the risk in doing this is that you remain dead). You still need to address Daka Fal, but you either learn the correct answers when being judged or bring him an offering (bribe). The route back may lead you somewhere unexpected on the surface world and may not be simple. As you get better, you refine your technique.

C. Sorcerers can do B. or make a resurrection enchantment that kicks in when they die that can pull them off the Path.

3. Other. If your soul is not in your cult afterlife, it can be rescued. See the Sartar campaign.

We don't have the RQG mechanics for 2 B or C, but we do know the Gloranthan context for them, so mechanics are not that important, but are easy to model. We know from Jeff's Design notes that heroes will have a "Hero Soul" that is a presence in the Otherworld. A shaman's otherworld presence is his fetch -  a load of self-sacrificed POW. So your Hero's presence is just going to be your POW in the otherworld in some form - let's call it your Hero Soul. The more POW you put into your Hero Soul, the better you'll do in the otherworld (like a fetch). Jeff mentions a link between being worshipped and doing this, so the you need worshippers to start a hero Soul (I'd say that every point of POW they sacrifice lets you put one of yours into the hero soul. You don't get their POW, that's the link, or a fraction of temple worship if officially recognised). Now treat Hero abilities like gaining shamanic abilities. Replace meeting a Greater Entity with psychopomp on a heroquest. Spend the POW points on Self-Resurrection, write a cool adventure on doing this for your party and you're done.

The Design note is here: https://www.chaosium.com/blog/designing-the-new-runequest-part-10/

 

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50 minutes ago, David Scott said:

We don't have the RQG mechanics for 2 B or C, but we do know the Gloranthan context for them, so mechanics are not that important, but are easy to model. We know from Jeff's Design notes that heroes will have a "Hero Soul" that is a presence in the Otherworld. A shaman's otherworld presence is his fetch -  a load of self-sacrificed POW. So your Hero's presence is just going to be your POW in the otherworld in some form - let's call it your Hero Soul. The more POW you put into your Hero Soul, the better you'll do in the otherworld (like a fetch). Jeff mentions a link between being worshipped and doing this, so the you need worshippers to start a hero Soul (I'd say that every point of POW they sacrifice lets you put one of yours into the hero soul. You don't get their POW, that's the link, or a fraction of temple worship if officially recognised). Now treat Hero abilities like gaining shamanic abilities. Replace meeting a Greater Entity with psychopomp on a heroquest. Spend the POW points on Self-Resurrection, write a cool adventure on doing this for your party and you're done.

One of the things about the LBQ is that when it resurrects someone, there are frequently some kind of complications that work against a regular resurrect. Yelm doesn't want to come back, at least not by the hand of his enemy and without being given his dues. Sheng Seleris is locked in a Lunar hell. The Red Goddess is... it's complicated. I would be shocked to learn that Palangio didn't do something to make it hard for Arkat to resurrect normally. The LBQ is capable of cutting through all that. 

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