Solar Campaign

[None]

31 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Of course not. That would be Rebellion, and Rebellion is abhorent to the Emperor. In those cases, you send out the regiments (and Shargash if necessary) and destroy/banish the Rebels. The Empire is once again at peace.

That's what I expected.

24 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

o, not permitted. But if you read the Fortunate Succession, you get a picture that there are periods of stability and peace, and periods of war and rebellion (as one would expect).

Here's two examples quoted from that work:

Helemshal was a strong emperor, who did not marry too early, and enjoyed the guidance of wise councilors. Under his guidance the great general Casatokum was sent to attack the nomads in their homelands, and led a great army of cavalry from all across the Empire. They plundered enemy herds and captured many slaves for years before they retired to the Empire. [Casatokum was later executed for treason.]

Desikanir had difficult opposition to become Emperor, yet he alone completed the Ten Tests. Nonetheless, after the ceremony the lords of the Empire fought upon the very Tower of Enthronement. The Empire declined quickly. It broke into three parts. Part went to join the Spolite heresy. The north revolted, and with nearby territories formed the land of Althil in order to fight the nomads together. The southern part called Terarir formed its own independent land, allied with Darjiin, to fight against the dragons of Saird. This left only the great city of Raibanth and its territory of Vonlath.

I think you'll see the overall gist. There's 1200+ years pre-Lunar Empire and within the DH Empire waxed and waned several times.

So the Lunar Empire has only (so far) been a period when that kind of thing doesn't happen. Still there must have been some way for the nobles of Dara Happa to attack and sabotage each other without it being considered treason.

[Eff]

15 minutes ago, None said:

That's what I expected.

So the Lunar Empire has only (so far) been a period when that kind of thing doesn't happen. Still there must have been some way for the nobles of Dara Happa to attack and sabotage each other without it being considered treason.

You would think so. That's what historical human beings act like, generally within the bounds of their social structures. But there is a definite tendency to treat Dara Happa as some sort of nightmare society where autocracy works and people are all happily subordinated to the emperor, in which case the nobles only ever struggled against rivals and on behalf of friends when the script/invented history said they could. 

[None]

31 minutes ago, Eff said:

You would think so. That's what historical human beings act like, generally within the bounds of their social structures. But there is a definite tendency to treat Dara Happa as some sort of nightmare society where autocracy works and people are all happily subordinated to the emperor, in which case the nobles only ever struggled against rivals and on behalf of friends when the script/invented history said they could

That is a result of Dara Happa being more of an antagonist culture viewed from the lens of the Orlanthi I suppose.

I can accept the Dara Happans being  in general happily subordinated to, sportive of and accepting of their social structure and hierarchy. I can also accept the thought that people with a high sun affinity are more naturally inclined towards, let's call them very ordered and stratified structuress.

I however cannot accept that they should be completely bound to it to the point they're basically robots. The nobility would still fight and scheme amongst each other, if not overtly out in the open. Commoners would still have ambitious. Some within in the scope of their position in society, some outside. And while those reaching beyond their assigned station would probably still have their ambitions tempered to varying degrees by their society's world-views there is still a lot of wiggle room there. Random street sweeper fourteen would probably not be plotting his way to nobility or emperor-ship but could still be plotting within, or a little bit beyond, the scope of his personal world and sometimes it might even work.

I imagine that within Dara Happa society there are probably a lot of hard lines they would never even consider or imagine to cross that an Orlanthi readily would. Some Dara Happan's might tiptoe to a bit, a rare few might do a bit more, but just because of that doesn't mean there can't be more lines and social structures within their society that are readily bent.

[jajagappa]

1 hour ago, None said:

So the Lunar Empire has only (so far) been a period when that kind of thing doesn't happen. Still there must have been some way for the nobles of Dara Happa to attack and sabotage each other without it being considered treason.

Well, so they would have you believe!
Between the Redline History (in the Glorantha Sourcebook) and the Lunar information in Fortunate Succession, you can map some additional details.

1. Zero Wane - defeat of the Carmanian Empire; rise of the Red Moon - basically a period of a lot of wars between several Carmanian provinces (Carmania ruled DH in this period)
2. First Wane - Revolt of the DH Tripolis (including barbarian allies, i.e. Jannisor, Sable Riders)
3. Second Wane - more outwardly focused on conquest (e.g. Twice Blessed, Erigia, Sylila)
4. Third and Fourth Wanes - DH/Lunar Empire overrun and conquered by the horse nomads of Sheng Seleris. Roughly a 100 year period. A few areas holdout vs Sheng - Silver Shadow, Alkoth, Sylila - so clearly there are raids, skirmishes, battles between these areas.
5. Fifth Wane - post-Sheng, mostly outward focused towards conquest in the Redlands and Tarsh.
6. Sixth Wane - Dart Wars end up destroying several families - "covert" wars are widespread
7. Seventh Wane - focus on the southern war in Dragon Pass at least up until the recent White Moon rebellion

[None]

On 10/2/2024 at 3:03 PM, None said:

On 10/2/2024 at 10:35 AM, davecake said:

think playing out  a game like that sounds cool and interesting, but fundamentally not very well suited to the finely grained/crunchy nature of RuneQuest. Playing 75 years of Pendragon is a titanic undertaking, let alone thousands of years of myth and history. 

Yes. That is one of the things that has been worrying me. Still want to give it a try though. Also just because its thousands of years of myth and history doesn't mean you ave to be there every step of the way.

I would like to draw some attention back to this as that is one of my main worries about a campaign like this and I would like to ask if anyone else has any advice on how to handle it.

Also while I'm at it:

On 10/3/2024 at 10:29 PM, None said:

On 10/3/2024 at 8:09 PM, Joerg said:

WIth the gods still around, one way to play this would be you just ask the deity to do their stuff in their presence.

However, that breaks the tenet of "Sorcery is what you know, Animism is what you have and Theism is what you are." That's pretty much why I have shied away from placing RuneQuest in Godtime. Much less a problem with HeroQuest/Questworlds.

Yes, I quickly understood I just had to accept that the mechanics wouldn't line up perfectly with the fluff and that I'd just had to make do with what I could. One thing that shouldn't be too unfeasible would be to deicide that since everyone is outside time (due to it not existing) and separation the Other world and Mortal world is pretty much non-existent or at leat extremely thin theists are always in a state of let's call it Pseoudo Heroquesting.

Not that anyone would call it that or think of it like that but that's beside the point.

The point is that it should be possible to say that action and feats normally only possible through Heroquesting for those living inside time are always possible to at least some degree during the Golden Age (and Probably the Green and Storm Age too). All you have to do is be Initiated (or whatever the equivalent would be during those periods) and your always Heroquesting as that god to some degree.

Then just use the character's Devotion (deity), appropriate Rune Affinity/Affinities or Cult Lore as the basis for the characters ability to perform such feats. (You probably want to at least sometimes apply a rune point or magic point cost too but I'm assuming what you always do for fantastic actions within Heroquests anyway.)

Anything with this idea that could complicate or unbalance the game (or just be plain difficult to implement) that that you can think of? I'm already leaning towards make magic more easily accessible during the Golden Age and I don't think this will cause an issue if everyone has it, but still. That doesn't mean I haven't missed something.

[soltakss]

On 10/3/2024 at 9:29 PM, None said:

I'm reading this as Dara Happa conflicts with the Olanthi dind't really begin until Orlanth killed Yelm and they began to, well, use they world as their personal sandbox. It works pretty well from a narrative standpoint with things growing more dire for the players and introducing new challenges and dangers for the players at the same time.

Umath split Sky and Earth, which was the first in a long line of deeds pitting Air and Sky. The sons of Aether, or the Fire Tribe in general, fought Umath and drove him away along his spiral path. The conflict between Orlanth and Yelm came a lot later and the Storm tribe were already established as rivals or foes. Imagine a typical feud, we hurt them because they hurt us, they hurt us because we hurt them and repeat, sometimes they don't even remember what started the feud, or other deeds were worse than the deed that started things off.

[soltakss]

1 hour ago, None said:

On 10/2/2024 at 2:03 PM, None said:

On 10/2/2024 at 9:35 AM, davecake said:

think playing out  a game like that sounds cool and interesting, but fundamentally not very well suited to the finely grained/crunchy nature of RuneQuest. Playing 75 years of Pendragon is a titanic undertaking, let alone thousands of years of myth and history. 

Yes. That is one of the things that has been worrying me. Still want to give it a try though. Also just because its thousands of years of myth and history doesn't mean you ave to be there every step of the way.

I would like to draw some attention back to this as that is one of my main worries about a campaign like this and I would like to ask if anyone else has any advice on how to handle it.

Personally, I don't get generational campaigns.

However, the mindset needs to be completely different. Instead of focussing on Adventure development in the normal RQ way, by incremental increases in skills, magic, and personality, you would probably want to focus on key events and how your Adventurer interacts with them. So, assuming 1 scenario per Season and an adventuring lifetime of 30 years, you have 150 scenarios per Adventurer. Now, even at 1 Scenario per week, that is 3 years of game time for one Adventurer. Expand that into multi-generational campaigns and it becomes tricky. Instead, consider an Adventurer's lifetime, they may have 3 or 4 key events in that lifetime, even at 2 sessions per event, that becomes more manageable.

Do you need to track Adventurer skills, magic, and personality during that time? Probably, but not as grittily as you would normally. Instead, just increase skills and magic appropriately between each session.

The GM might need to look at the various histories available to work out what the key events for each generation are, and how they affect the Adventurers. 

How do Adventurers' actions affect future generations? You could use a version of the Family History rules in character generation, and give new Adventurers skills, Passions and spells based on those events. Some of them could be inherited magic or skills, giving bonuses based on past experiences.

1 hour ago, None said:

Anything with this idea that could complicate or unbalance the game (or just be plain difficult to implement) that that you can think of? I'm already leaning towards make magic more easily accessible during the Golden Age and I don't think this will cause an issue if everyone has it, but still. That doesn't mean I haven't missed something.

Playing during the God Time would mean playing minor deities or demigods, otherwise they are going to be the playthings of gods, at best, or leaves whipped along by a hurricane, at worst.

Use the normal RQ, or QuestWorlds, rules, but with a deeper connection to Runes. Runespells come partly from the Adventurers themselves, due to their divine ancestry or deeds, rather than from worshiped deities. 

I haven't played a campaign set in the God Time, so I have no idea of it would work. Just be flexible and allow the rules to work for you not against you.

[mfbrandi]

3 hours ago, soltakss said:

Personally, I don’t get generational campaigns.

Me neither, but presumably “getting inspiration” from games built for generational play has all the advantages of theft over honest toil. I can’t vouch for these games, but they might be worth a glance for things to filch:

• No Country for Old Kobolds
• The Legacy family of games (that is an overview; see also this)

I guess that if the focus is on the here-and-now but with a big dose of player input to deep backstory, one could handle the God Time elements as-and-when using something like Blades in the Dark flashbacks — “We need what now? Did I tell you about the time our ancestors …? So you see we have long had access to [magical tool X].” Which cues up a single roll or minigame. Maybe.

[None]

23 hours ago, soltakss said:

However, the mindset needs to be completely different. Instead of focussing on Adventure development in the normal RQ way, by incremental increases in skills, magic, and personality, you would probably want to focus on key events and how your Adventurer interacts with them. So, assuming 1 scenario per Season and an adventuring lifetime of 30 years, you have 150 scenarios per Adventurer. Now, even at 1 Scenario per week, that is 3 years of game time for one Adventurer. Expand that into multi-generational campaigns and it becomes tricky. Instead, consider an Adventurer's lifetime, they may have 3 or 4 key events in that lifetime, even at 2 sessions per event, that becomes more manageable.

Yes I've been considering something like that where the players simply aren't free to adventure every season and there are periods when just nothing particularly noteworthy happen or things just move slowly. I, uh, also never intended to have the players play their characters entire lifespan until they died of old age.

On 10/3/2024 at 8:09 PM, Joerg said:

However, that breaks the tenet of "Sorcery is what you know, Animism is what you have and Theism is what you are."

By the way, did Animism and Sorcery exist during the Golden Age?

Edited 9 hours ago by None

[metcalph]

18 minutes ago, None said:

By the way, did Animism and Sorcery exist during the Golden Age?

Yes.  Simply put, the Sorcerors lived in the West and the Animists lived in Pamaltela.

Edited 9 hours ago by metcalph

[None]

7 minutes ago, metcalph said:

Yes.  Simply put, the Sorcerors lived in the West and the Animists lived in Pamaltela.

But nothing in Peloria?

 

Edit: also concerning Issaries. How is he treated in Dara Happa? He and his cult is known to be neutral but they're also, you know, Orlanthi. Are there any Issaries substitutes or similes among the Solars? Specifically the Solars not the Lunar one.

Edited 9 hours ago by None

[metcalph]

9 minutes ago, None said:

But nothing in Peloria?

Buserian (Pelorian version of Lhankor Mhy) is worshipped but nobody knows quite what his worship was like.  The first unambiguous sorcerors in Peloria are the Logicians serving the invading Blue People.

 

9 minutes ago, None said:

Edit: also concerning Issaries. How is he treated in Dara Happa? He and his cult is known to be neutral but they're also, you know, Orlanthi. Are there any Issaries substitutes or similes among the Solars? Specifically the Solars not the Lunar one.

The Dara Happans worship Lokarnos the Wagon God.  Issaries has a slightly higher status than his barbarian associations would warrant considering his daughter Etyries is the main trade god of the Lunar Empire.  But the various trade gods have slightly different focuses.

Lokarnos: Teamsters.

Issaries: Marketplace merchants.

Etyries: Sales and Marketing departments.

Argan Argar:  Shady goods of dubious providence and uncertain side-effects.

[None]

1 hour ago, metcalph said:

Argan Argar:  Shady goods of dubious providence and uncertain side-effects.

I don't know why but still this one made me chuckle.

1 hour ago, metcalph said:

Lokarnos: Teamsters.

Unfortunately I'm not familiar with that term but judging from Wikipedia its essentially a caravan?

[jajagappa]

3 hours ago, None said:

I'm not familiar with that term but judging from Wikipedia its essentially a caravan?

We have a Teamsters Union in the US. It derives from a driver of a wagon with a team of draft animals.

Lokarnos is the Wagon God (or the wheel god), so is also the god of the wagon drivers / caravanners (i.e. Issaries might buy and sell the goods, but Lokarnos is the one who gets them delivered).

[svensson]

ELMAL LIVES!

[Alright, alright... I'm going. I gotta make my court-ordered meeting of Heretics Anonymous anyway]