Rules for Illumination

[Soccercalle]

Hi,

Illumination rules was mentioned in the core rulebook and promised to be included in the Gamemasters Guide. As that book no longer seems to be in the plan I wonder if Illumination will be described in the Cults book or the RQ Campaign Book. I have the ancient text "Gods of Glorantha" with some basic rules for (Lunar) illumination but that is based on skills that don't seem to exist in RQG.

Or are they published somewhere else where I can have missed them.

[metcalph]

1 minute ago, Soccercalle said:

Hi,

Illumination rules was mentioned in the core rulebook and promised to be included in the Gamemasters Guide. As that book no longer seems to be in the plan I wonder if Illumination will be described in the Cults book or the RQ Campaign Book. I have the ancient text "Gods of Glorantha" with some basic rules for (Lunar) illumination but that is based on skills that don't seem to exist in RQG.

Or are they published somewhere else where I can have missed them.

Illumination has been printed in Cults of Terror (avaibale as a PDF from Chaosium) and I've been informed repeatedly the rules therein are largely the same for RuneQuest: Glorantha which will be printed in the Gods and Goddess of Glorantha book.  The only innovation since then has been (per HeroQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha) that Illumination is a feature of the Infinity Rune and so that Nysaloran Illumination is Light plus Infinity, Draconic Illumination is Dragon plus Infinity etc.

The Lunar magic skill of Amplify is mentioned in the Red Book of Magic (Cf Meteor Swarm p117) and so the Gods of Glorantha approach still looks valid.  The skill of COmbine may or may not exist any more (since RQ:G took the euqivalent multispell out of the sorcery rules).

[Steve]

1 hour ago, Soccercalle said:

Illumination rules was mentioned in the core rulebook and promised to be included in the Gamemasters Guide. As that book no longer seems to be in the plan ...

What makes you think that the GM's guide isn't coming? It still is, as far as I'm aware.

[Soccercalle]

36 minutes ago, Steve said:

What makes you think that the GM's guide isn't coming? It still is, as far as I'm aware.

Well. It was promised in the new rulebook from 2018. Chaosium has released other non-essential books since then and it is not mentioned in the posts made by Jeff and other representatives for Chaosium. I really hope that it is. But I don't really care if they are published there or in another book like the Cults book or the RQ Campaign. 

But maybe Jeff or someone else can clarify. (Even if I know that Chaosium don't like to take about when different books are coming. But I guess this is something else when the book was clearly promised in the core rulebook).

[French Desperate WindChild]

1 hour ago, metcalph said:

Illumination has been printed in Cults of Terror (avaibale as a PDF from Chaosium) and I've been informed repeatedly the rules therein are largely the same for RuneQuest: Glorantha which will be printed in the Gods and Goddess of Glorantha book.  The only innovation since then has been (per HeroQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha) that Illumination is a feature of the Infinity Rune and so that Nysaloran Illumination is Light plus Infinity, Draconic Illumination is Dragon plus Infinity etc.

thinking about your answer, I get a new question ( your fault ! :p) 

does that mean characters should get a score in infinity rune like others runes ?

does that mean the "illumination skill" is now transfered to this infinity rune ? or in both inifinity and "school" (light, dragon, ...) rune ?

I m not sure of the consequences in this cases (seems to me that the inifinity rune represents more than only illumination)

[metcalph]

27 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

thinking about your answer, I get a new question ( your fault ! :p) 

does that mean characters should get a score in infinity rune like others runes ?

does that mean the "illumination skill" is now transfered to this infinity rune ? or in both inifinity and "school" (light, dragon, ...) rune ?

I m not sure of the consequences in this cases (seems to me that the inifinity rune represents more than only illumination)

IMO only

The Illumination score (number of riddles answered, percent chance of illumination) is the same as before.  Whether this is the infinity rune rating or not makes little difference (½∞=∞).  The other rune is really how you approach the infinity rune rather than a combined score.

[Shiningbrow]

2 hours ago, metcalph said:

The skill of COmbine may or may not exist any more (since RQ:G took the euqivalent multispell out of the sorcery rules).

I'm taking it more than the said skill isn't used or taught very much, at the very least by LM.

I would expect it to show up again in books on different schools of sorcery, such as Western or Mostali.

Apologies for the off topic...

[Nick Brooke]

That Infinity Rune stuff is just HeroQuest mechanics, probably irrelevant to RQG. The biggest change to Illumination compared to Cults of Terror is that Illuminates now gain powers a la carte, not from the set menu: not every Illuminate can do all the stuff you've heard Illuminates can do. But for now, I'd use Cults of Terror and ignore anything from HeroQuest.

[Alex]

24 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

That Infinity Rune stuff is just HeroQuest mechanics, probably irrelevant to RQG. The biggest change to Illumination compared to Cults of Terror is that Illuminates now gain powers a la carte, not from the set menu: not every Illuminate can do all the stuff you've heard Illuminates can do. But for now, I'd use Cults of Terror and ignore anything from HeroQuest.

Well, the "incompatible runes" thing seems pretty pertinent to me, given that RQG has explicit "runes" rules for that to apply to, whereas back in the CoT day, RQ2 did not.  And the a la carte observation you make yourself.  So, ignore HQG, except for the main takeaways from HQG!  (No doubt there are other differences, but I'm too lazy for that much textual analysis right now, especially if I can get someone else to do it for me.)

[David Scott]

3 hours ago, Soccercalle said:

Or are they published somewhere else where I can have missed them.

To summerise:

• RQG rules will be in the cults book (Nysalorian)
• Ignore HQG mechanics
• Illumination is not intended to be some super cool power game thing. (quote from Jeff)
• Illuminates now gain powers a la carte, not from the set menu (thank for the analogy @Nick Brooke) - Illumination provides a range of 8 abilities. Every illuminate has the first one, with most having the second and third as well. Then the abilities get rarer and so on up to number 8.
• A first draft of RQG illumination rules was in the limited Cults of Glorantha previews (2019). Based on Cults of Terror, with a few added RQG mechanics for spells, passions, and runes. You could easily use the CoT rules for RQG, everyone has the secret (number 1) and a la carte the rest. 7 is ignore rune opposites values adding to 100, 8 is use your illumination skill to overcome runes or passion.

If you want to read more about the current thoughts on illumination, @Jeff has scattered notes on this board, you can see them here:

https://basicroleplaying.org/search/?&q=illumination&quick=1&author=Jeff&search_and_or=and&sortby=relevancy

Edited January 4, 2022 by David Scott

[tnli]

And here I thought we would be talking about torches and lanterns and stuff... 

[Soccercalle]

Thanks for all the replies. Fortunately I had bought the Cults Compendium so I could find the Illumination rules from Cults of Terror. Quite good rules even if the details should be updated. 

I am of course still interested to know if Jeff could elaborate on the Gamemasters Guide with the promised rules for Heroes, Heroquesting and Illumination. Or if they will come in another book.

[davecake]

Just echoing what everyone else has said:

• Similar to the Cults of Terror rules. If you use them as a starting point, you won’t go too far astray
• its explicitly stated that other forms of mysticism, such as Draconic forms, are essentially the same, though different in detail.
• not every Illuminate learns every power. Different paths to Illumination learn different things. Dedicated Illuminates can learn more powers later by talking studying with others, etc.
• the list is the same as in Cults of Terror, with the addition of two more - opposing Runes may not be opposed, and Passions and Runes no longer can compel the character. 
• its not clear how such powers work exactly. It’s clear that not every Illuminate can raise opposed Runes, but do the learn each opposed pair as a separate ability? It seems likely the Lunars might learn Life and Death, for example.
• it is not intended to be very powerful in itself, but it can allow access to magic that is otherwise cut off. This can include things like Life or Death magic at the same time by raising both Runes. And the one example in the draft of a magic unique to Illuminates, but separate to it, was Red Goddess magic, very similar to RQ3 - only Illuminates can learn it, and it is potentially very powerful, but it comes from the Red Goddess and must be separately developed at some effort. It is certainly plausible that there are other ways in which some forms of Illumination are part of the pathway to other magic. Draconic magic may be something accessible via EWF methods.
• teaching Illumination is a rare Illumination power. Nysalor riddles are probably only one way of teaching, and a uniquely effective one. 
• Lunar Madness spells and powers can help increase your chance of Illumination in a given Sacred Time. This implies that the Lunars may subject themselves to such powers in their Sevening rites. 
• the Infinity rune connection does not get a mention, I would agree with Nick that at least for the moment treat this as just a HQ game convention. 

[soltakss]

On 1/4/2022 at 7:45 AM, Soccercalle said:

Or are they published somewhere else where I can have missed them.

Secrets of Dorastor has Illumination Rules. I have no idea how close they will be to the official rules, as I wrote them years ago.

[Darius West]

On 1/4/2022 at 6:45 PM, Soccercalle said:

Hi,

Illumination rules was mentioned in the core rulebook and promised to be included in the Gamemasters Guide. As that book no longer seems to be in the plan I wonder if Illumination will be described in the Cults book or the RQ Campaign Book. I have the ancient text "Gods of Glorantha" with some basic rules for (Lunar) illumination but that is based on skills that don't seem to exist in RQG.

Or are they published somewhere else where I can have missed them.

I have a copy of the preview edition of Gods of Glorantha, and Nysalor gets a 7 page write-up.  It is much like the Cults of Terror write-up.  Notably, spells like Mind-Blast and Madness add to Illumination totals, as does Rays of Piercing Truth.  They also get a special reconcile opposites ability than removes the requirement for opposed runes like Life and Death to need to add up to 100%.  I am obviously being brief here.

[davecake]

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

They also get a special reconcile opposites ability than removes the requirement for opposed runes like Life and Death to need to add up to 100%. 

While Nysalor is given that ability in the Gods preview, the ability seems to be a general ability for all forms of Illumination, not a special one for Nysalor. It is also listed as an ability available to all forms of Illumination in HeroQuest Glorantha. 
The only unique ability to Nysaloran Illumination seems to be their unique form of teaching through riddles - other forms may have their own special teaching methods, but Nysaloran Riddles seem comparitively easy.

[Soccercalle]

I accidentially looked in my old book ”Dorastor: Land of Doom”. It actually describes the rules for Illumination better than the text in ”Cults of Terror”. They are the same but with better text. But it lacks some of the backstory about the Arkat/Gbaji wars.

[Alex]

7 hours ago, Darius West said:

They also get a special reconcile opposites ability than removes the requirement for opposed runes like Life and Death to need to add up to 100%.

So kinda like the ability on similar lines in HQG, really!  As with the "powers a la carte".

[Akhôrahil]

On 1/4/2022 at 12:20 PM, David Scott said:

Illumination is not intended to be some super cool power game thing.

Will be interesting to see how this is handled, as the CoT rules absolutely were this.

Edited January 8, 2022 by Akhôrahil

[Alex]

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

Will be interesting to see how this is handled, as the CoT rules absolutely were this.

My hot-take is this will ultimately come down to what happens at the table.  Illumination finesses a lot of the "god's eye view" restrictions on what you can do magically, but does nothing -- or worse! -- for the human side.  And there's inevitably going to be a lot of different ways that could end up being played out.

Just remember what Arkat said.  No powergaming without respect and understanding!

[Godlearner]

1 hour ago, Alex said:

Just remember what Arkat said.  No powergaming without respect and understanding!

I beleive it was Nysalor who said that .... or maybe Gbaji .... or maybe even Arkat. Does not matter. Its wrong and right. Its what you want it to be.

[David Scott]

11 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

as the CoT rules absolutely were this.

With the proviso in the introduction of:

Quote

We recommend that Player Characters who join these religions quickly be put to sacrifice by Non-Player-Character priests, to get them out of play.

[Akhôrahil]

7 minutes ago, David Scott said:

With the proviso in the introduction of:

You can abuse Illumination plenty without joining Chaos cults. 🙂

[soltakss]

6 hours ago, David Scott said:

With the proviso in the introduction of:

Quote

We recommend that Player Characters who join these religions quickly be put to sacrifice by Non-Player-Character priests, to get them out of play.

Now, where is the fun in that?

[PhilHibbs]

2 hours ago, soltakss said:

Now, where is the fun in that?

The non-player-character priests get plenty of fun!