Runes and Occupations

[Videopete]

so here is a few questions, what to do when changing Occupations. One of my players started as a Herder but due to experience rolls and great role play has managed to become the top hunter in the party and on his way to becoming an Initiate in the Found Child Cult, we are using a fusion of 2nd Edition and Role-playing in Glorantha for my Balazar Campaign.  So the idea im tossing around is, that during Sacred Time people have an opertunity to change thier role in society and the way they generate income.  The other question is, characters generally only start with a guaranteed points in 3 elemental runes. Elemental Runes it seems are not tied to the 1-99 scale that the other Runes are, so how do you gain points in elements you don't have.

[Psullie]

I think that this would have to be played out. The character would need to embody the desired element, perhaps seeking guidance from a priest/shaman about a quest or activity that could start the process. For example to gain the Water Rune may require a journey to the Sea and give an offering to a water diety

[David Scott]

Firstly occupation. In my group's your occupation is what you are up until the moment the game starts. If you are a herder, you are making your income from your herder %. That means you've got a stake in a herd, the meat and wool. To transition to a hunter, you first need become a lay member of a hunting cult, let's say foundchild. That means you first have to start to hanging around with the hunters. That won't happen until you got a missile weapon at 30%, you are supporting yourself by hunting (or family) and  donate one prey mammal or bird per season to the tribe. So as long as you are doing that then that's fine. However you will  decrease you annual income by doing so to 40L (herder 60L).So this is the first roleplay bit, leaving your old work, selling up your share of the herd, telling your family your all going to be poorer...

To me there's a big difference between being able to hunt and being supported by hunting.

Next. Changing cult. Could be easy, if you were a Praxian for example and a Waha herder, I'd allow you to leave Waha and join Foundchild as they are good hunting mates. Or do the whole two cult thing. Then it's the Great hunt where you get initiated by bringing in a big animal, preferably alive and you wear no armour. Or your current god has a hunting aspect ( easier still)

You'd need to have 50% in one of the cult runes too ( not that difficult). Overall - a lot of roleplaying and hardship.

[David Scott]

Second. Gaining % in elemental runes you don't have - the short answer is research and training. You can't get experience ticks until you are above 0% then it's easy. Examples might be training by priests of an elemental cult friendly to yours. Or a shaman getting you to do firewalking, sitting in the dark for a season, staring at the sun, sitting in water, eating moon rock, Yogic breath work with the mystics of old wind, being buried alive for a month at an earth temple - you get the idea. Anything that would open your spirit or soul to that element. Think of it as a form of elemental enlightenment.

[Squaredeal Sten]

10 hours ago, Videopete said:

s...The other question is, characters generally only start with a guaranteed points in 3 elemental runes. Elemental Runes it seems are not tied to the 1-99 scale that the other Runes are, so how do you gain points in elements you don't have.

I believe the elemental runes start at 60%, 40%, and 20%, you choose which rune get which %.  Look at RQG page 45, Step 3 Rune Affinities, / elemental runes / Choosing your elemental runes, 2nd sentence of the first paragraph.  Then you get to add in cultural rune bonuses.  And maybe some from your family and individual history. 

For any runes besides those three you can gain them in play, when the GM says you can take 10% in Plant rune that's it.

 

[Rodney Dangerduck]

Assuming you could train your 0% Elemental rune up to 10% or whatever, what do you plan to do with it?  Not good for Inspiration nor casting Rune Spells.  As things stand on RQG, runes that start at 0% are seldom worth worrying about.

[Baron Wulfraed]

2 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

I believe the elemental runes start at 60%, 40%, and 20%, you choose which rune get which %.  Look at RQG page 45, Step 3 Rune Affinities, / elemental runes / Choosing your elemental runes, 2nd sentence of the first paragraph.  Then you get to add in cultural rune bonuses.  And maybe some from your family and individual history. 

That leads to a possible ambiguity on page 51.

Quote

You may now distribute 50 points among any of your adventurer’s Rune affinities.

Are those 50% restricted to only non-0% Elemental Rune affinities (and any Form/Power, since those are balanced pairs), or could they be used to give a token positive value a 0% Elemental Rune?

[Rodney Dangerduck]

Any.  So you could boost that 0% Element to the 50% range where it becomes useable.

[David Scott]

5 hours ago, Baron Wulfraed said:

Are those 50% restricted to only non-0% Elemental Rune affinities (and any Form/Power, since those are balanced pairs)

No

5 hours ago, Baron Wulfraed said:

or could they be used to give a token positive value a 0% Elemental Rune?

Yes

[PhilHibbs]

I'm not sure that building up an element from zero is a good idea. It's going to be a long slog before it's useful, and in a more Gloranthan sense, your runes are really fundamentally what you are. It should be as daunting to raise a rune from zero to 75% as it should be to raise your DEX from 3 to 15.

Changing occupation, easy. If you've got the skills, you can do the job.

Changing cult, harder, if it's not a natural progression then that's what Spirits of Reprisal are for.

Raising runes from zero? That's fundamentally changing what you are. It's like me wanting to change my eye colour. That's a whole story in itself - a story that could be worth playing, but not a thing to just want to do on a whim.

Edited September 23, 2020 by PhilHibbs

[Borygon]

Wait, going further down this road, what prevents illuminate from obtaining 90% in all elemental runes and becoming avatar of Glorantha?

[Eff]

12 minutes ago, Borygon said:

Wait, going further down this road, what prevents illuminate from obtaining 90% in all elemental runes and becoming avatar of Glorantha?

The lack of an existing cult to initiate the Illuminate properly.

The difficulties that would face any human being trying to twist their personality around in such a fashion that they're effectively compelled to behave cruelly, mercurially, pragmatically, rationally, passionately, and dreamily/irrationally whenever faced with the choice. 

The existence of Glorantha as a fringe character in existing myths, making it difficult to talk to her if you try and revive her cult by venturing onto the Hero Plane. 

 

Then you have the matter that Glorantha is dead and doesn't provide any magic, so there's not many gameplay effects from it...

[jajagappa]

12 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Raising runes from zero? That's fundamentally changing what you are. It's like me wanting to change my eye colour. That's a whole story in itself - a story that could be worth playing, but not a thing to just want to do on a whim.

Depends on when you are doing it. 

During character creation it's just part of the character's makeup - they have more, broader affinity to different elements.  

During play, then yes, it can be a fundamental change (and would not do on a whim - unless they are in the Underworld or encountering major Chaos, in which case anything is fair game).  I've had a couple PC's in my HQG game go through some very radical transformations based on significant quest encounters.  (One lost his Darkness Rune entirely, and ended up replaced by the Water Rune.  His body went through some substantive change as a result - and then further altered by a dalliance with an Earth goddess during the Feast of Beasts.)

2 hours ago, Borygon said:

what prevents illuminate from obtaining 90% in all elemental runes and becoming avatar of Glorantha?

Who are you obtaining them from?  The gods are not handing out Runes, and they aren't lying around to be integrated (this isn't Mongoose RQ).  

But in theory, every mortal is a blend of all the Runes (i.e. you've got bones, blood, breath, sight, muscle, magic).  It's just that you can only "channel" a certain amount number of those elements effectively.  You could potentially start with all 6 elements at: 60/40/20/20/20/10.  Even without Illumination, you could use any of those Runes for inspiration.  The chance of success is very low, but doable.  And over a very long period of time, or with certain training, you could slowly build up in each.  But it's going to take awhile to do so.  

[PhilHibbs]

9 hours ago, jajagappa said:

You could potentially start with all 6 elements at: 60/40/20/20/20/10.

Technically slightly better than that as everyone gets a rune bouns, but yes, it's difficult to be everything.

[davecake]

On 9/24/2020 at 5:38 AM, Eff said:

The lack of an existing cult to initiate the Illuminate properly.

Lunars via the Young Elementals can acquire all but Air. 
and no doubt some have. And actually use them - summoning elementals, for example. 

On 9/24/2020 at 5:38 AM, Eff said:

The difficulties that would face any human being trying to twist their personality around in such a fashion that they're effectively compelled to behave cruelly, mercurially, pragmatically, rationally, passionately, and dreamily/irrationally whenever faced with the choice. 

Illuminates can also acquire opposed Power Runes, compared to that multiple Elements are easy! Lunar Illuminates are large, they can contain multitudes.

 

On 9/24/2020 at 5:20 AM, Borygon said:

and becoming avatar of Glorantha?

That does not necessarily follow. As Eff says, there is a lot more to it than just a lot of rune percentages. Not they aren’t handy, of course - Lunars ability to produce surprise elementals is definitely useful, though not overwhelming.