Monster of the Month #8 — Storm Rams

[Austin]

August's MOTM, Storm Rams, is now available on DriveThruRPG!

Filling the Air from horizon to horizon, the noble Storm Rams are a new spirit for your game of RuneQuest. They are the embodiment of rain-giving clouds, found anywhere throughout Glorantha. Included in this supplement are:

• A description of what the Orlanthi believe about these spirits
• The bestiary detailing storm rams, lightning rams, cloud sheep, and advice on how to create your own unique, more powerful variations
• One minor magic item—the heat-relieving Mistwool
• An alternative perspective from Prax, including a brief spirit cult

If you're interested in keeping up with what I'm working on, I suggest checking out Wind Whispers, the weekly Glorantha newsletter the fellas behind the Wind Words podcast publish. If I've got something odd or juicy up my sleeve, I usually let them know before I post about it publicly. Plus, there's oodles of other news they pick up throughout the week—it's really convenient.

[Akhôrahil]

So I used this in play last session. One Orlanth PC was looking for a God-Talker advancement, and wanted to found a shrine halfway up Thunder Mountain in Talastar. The party have already been there twice in This World-heroquests and met Vorios (even assisting him against a Gagarthi heroquester), so they felt like they had something to work with. 

Starting out with divinations, they were given a vision of Vorios slamming one hoof down on a slab of rock, leaving a deep scorched hoof-mark pressed into it. Doing their best to guess the location, they made their way up the mountain. A Kolat shaman in the party interrogated a wind and bribed it with magic points to get directions. Approaching it, they stumbled on Barstan Ram-Friend (Secrets of Dorastor) who gave them lavish hospitality out of various loot, and wasn't hard-pressed to be convinced that a Ram-related shrine was a good idea. They built a ceremonial cairn, sacrificed, and called a Storm Ram to the location, after which the would-be God-Talker was informed he would have to prove his worth, Rodeo style. Both Extended Bull's Strength and shaman-prolonged regular Strength was brought out, after which first a successful unarmed attack (to grapple it) and a series of three rolls on the Resistance table followed (they were very happy to discover how Storm Rams don't weigh as much as one would expect). The Storm Ram was hence convinced to act as a wyter (potentially not the most consistent one...) and the shrine was consecrated. Aside from the regular qualities, we decided that the shrine provides a good place to pick up a Storm Ram allied spirit, that any Storm Rams and Air Elementals Summoned there come with an Extension 2 pre-applied, and that it teaches a special Summon Huge Air Elemental spell (which is so far of doubtful utility as no-one even feels ready to try to control large ones yet). 

Solid product!

Edited March 27, 2023 by Akhôrahil

[Bill the barbarian]

Austin does not come to BRP often enough to find this untagged post, and this is one of his I did not edit.. but, I do know a fancy spell that might bring him here...

@Crel

oh and @Akhôrahil, perhaps a simple mention of possible spoilers at the top of your post (if no spoilers, sorry) to keep the value of this fine product to others... cheers mate.

Edited March 27, 2023 by Bill the barbarian

[Austin]

12 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

They built a ceremonial cairn, sacrificed, and called a Storm Ram to the location, after which the would-be God-Talker was informed he would have to prove his worth, Rodeo style. Both Extended Bull's Strength and shaman-prolonged regular Strength was brought out, after which first a successful unarmed attack (to grapple it) and a series of three rolls on the Resistance table followed (they were very happy to discover how Storm Rams don't weigh as much as one would expect).

Hell yeah!!

That's an awesome story. Thanks for sharing it. ❤️ 

12 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Aside from the regular qualities, we decided that the shrine provides a good place to pick up a Storm Ram allied spirit, that any Storm Rams and Air Elementals Summoned there come with an Extension 2 pre-applied, and that it teaches a special Summon Huge Air Elemental spell (which is so far of doubtful utility as no-one even feels ready to try to control large ones yet).

Love these ideas. Sure would be a shame if a Huge Air Elemental went rampaging w/ Ext. 2 for a full day because no one could overcome its POW... 😈