Who has True (weapon) rune spell?

[DucksMustDie]

In the absence of better information, I have houseruled that to have True (weapon) spell, a cult must have:

1) Death rune

2) rune lords

3) a specific cult weapon

Any thoughts on this? Thanks 🙂

[Richard S.]

I think it's far more specific than that. You can't boil down whether or not a god can or can't provide a specific spell to a few bulletpoints, it all depends on whether the action the spell represents is mythologically significant for them. Humakt has Truesword because, well, he has the True Sword, Death. Yanafal Tarnils has Truesword because he won a piece of Death from Humakt in a duel on his way to godhood. Babesteer Gor and Zorak Zoran both match your specifications to the letter, but neither provide a True weapon.

[DucksMustDie]

31 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

Babesteer Gor and Zorak Zoran both match your specifications to the letter, but neither provide a True weapon.

YGMV, in my game they do

[David Scott]

It's an rare spell with only three cults and one associate cult providing it.

So Humakt, Tanafal Tarnils, see here: Rune Magic by Cult and Associate Cult

There are a few other references only:

Truespear is referenced in RBM, and provided by Avivorus as an associate cult to Yelm ( ) . Likewise Hastatus (aka Avivorus or Spear man) provides it as an an associate of Polaris (  ). So while Truespear can be cast with the Death rune, it's clearly Fire / Light magic.

True Garrotte comes from Than (). You can draw your own conclusions here.

Edited February 26, 2022 by David Scott

[soltakss]

Kaarg used to get True Maul in Elder Secrets (I think)

[g33k]

I'm having a hard time understanding how/why the Avenging Earth might NOT have True Axe ...

OTOH, ZZ is kinda patchwork, what with raising the dead, fire powers, etc...  I don't really see ZZ having the fixity of purpose to True anything at all.

MGF might suggest a high-grade combat magic like that "should" go to ZZ, but IMHO there are others more-suited to the god, and entirely adequate to the purpose (of making PC's wet themselves).

[JustAnotherVingan]

Shes got Axe Trance and Slash so shes not short of axe magic, but its hard to think of anyone with more claim to it.

[jajagappa]

3 hours ago, g33k said:

I'm having a hard time understanding how/why the Avenging Earth might NOT have True Axe ...

Maybe that was Genert's weapon, and no one has been able to recover it yet?  (i.e. Babeester has only been able to pick up pieces of Genert's old weapon, but has not yet found the "true" core of it)

[David Scott]

14 hours ago, g33k said:

I'm having a hard time understanding how/why the Avenging Earth might NOT have True Axe ...

11 hours ago, JustAnotherVingan said:

Shes got Axe Trance and Slash so shes not short of axe magic, but its hard to think of anyone with more claim to it

This is the age old RQ cults problem with players wanting to load up cults with loads of Rune magic as it's not enough. Babeester Gor is a small cult with seven special  Rune magics that define her role of protecting the temples of Ernalda. She doesn't need True (weapon) as she has the much more versatile Slash. While True (weapon) doubles the weapon damage, Slash adds a D6 per point. 3pts of Slash is likely to incapacitate a foe on a single blow.

[JustAnotherVingan]

10 hours ago, David Scott said:

This is the age old RQ cults problem with players wanting to load up cults with loads of Rune magic as it's not enough. Babeester Gor is a small cult with seven special  Rune magics that define her role of protecting the temples of Ernalda. She doesn't need True (weapon) as she has the much more versatile Slash. While True (weapon) doubles the weapon damage, Slash adds a D6 per point. 3pts of Slash is likely to incapacitate a foe on a single blow.

Overall I'd agree. BG has an excellent range of war magic. She doesn't need any more.

Maybe someone else has Trueaxe. Maybe there isn't a Trueaxe spell. Maybe whoever had it died in the Great Darkness.

[g33k]

20 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Maybe that was Genert's weapon, and no one has been able to recover it yet?  (i.e. Babeester has only been able to pick up pieces of Genert's old weapon, but has not yet found the "true" core of it)

This seems an excellent explanation... in the vein of "YGWV."

It is (afaik) entirely unsupported in canonical myths (other than the fact of Genert falling in battle)?

I could see an entire suite of myths around the "martial Male Earth" trope (and the loss of the one true True Earth Axe at the Earthfall)  but Glorantha is already showing up (to at least some people) as being a bit problematically gendered (in that "Male-Warrior / Female-Housekeeper") direction; so it likely isn't a direction I'd choose.

 

9 hours ago, David Scott said:

This is the age old RQ cults problem with players wanting to load up cults with loads of Rune magic as it's not enough. Babeester Gor is a small cult with seven special  Rune magics that define her role of protecting the temples of Ernalda. She doesn't need True (weapon) as she has the much more versatile Slash. While True (weapon) doubles the weapon damage, Slash adds a D6 per point. 3pts of Slash is likely to incapacitate a foe on a single blow.

Honestly, I'd likely be willing to trade Slash for True Axe, if you're going to bring "play balance" into the equation by suggesting that True <X> is one Rune Spell too many for a B.Gor-sized Cult.

As the preeminent Earth Deity of combat, having B.Gor not have the True (sacred Earth weapon) seems, well, odd in the extreme.  Unless, as noted above, we have a solid mythic explanation for that anomaly.

 

 

[Ironwall]

28 minutes ago, g33k said:

s the preeminent Earth Deity of combat, having B.Gor not have the True (sacred Earth weapon) seems, well, odd in the extreme.  Unless, as noted above, we have a solid mythic explanation for that anomaly.

Isn't babs more of a vengeance and protection goddess this may be why. Or babs isn't a true war god. Maybe the true earth war god was killed at generts garden or just not well known. Just justify why babs might not have true weapon.. what g33k said I didn't see their post until after I made mine.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 27, 2022 by Ironwall

[JustAnotherVingan]

On 2/26/2022 at 6:35 PM, g33k said:

I'm having a hard time understanding how/why the Avenging Earth might NOT have True Axe ...

OTOH, ZZ is kinda patchwork, what with raising the dead, fire powers, etc...  I don't really see ZZ having the fixity of purpose to True anything at all.

MGF might suggest a high-grade combat magic like that "should" go to ZZ, but IMHO there are others more-suited to the god, and entirely adequate to the purpose (of making PC's wet themselves).

I think perhaps the argument for her not having it might be similar to ZZ.

She has Axe Trance (and [Weapon] Trance spells are rare and powerful) and Slash for her axe aspect, Summon/Dismiss Small Gnome for her Earth aspect, Earth Shield and Shield for her role as a defender and protector, and Berserker for her role as a somewhat bloodthirsty avenger.

She is the premier axe goddess now but she wasn't born until The Great Darkness so I'm not unhappy with the idea that the Earth had another champion before her, Genert or one of those who fell with him.

[Shiningbrow]

How could she have True Axe when she doesn't even have the Truth Rune 😛

[jajagappa]

5 hours ago, g33k said:

It is (afaik) entirely unsupported in canonical myths (other than the fact of Genert falling in battle)?

Quite true, but it fits very well with the Genert figure from Sandy Petersen's The Gods War.

The other alternative would be Mostal (and one could make a case for Mostal making all the original True Weapons).

[Rodney Dangerduck]

On 2/27/2022 at 1:24 AM, David Scott said:

This is the age old RQ cults problem with players wanting to load up cults with loads of Rune magic as it's not enough. Babeester Gor is a small cult with seven special  Rune magics that define her role of protecting the temples of Ernalda. She doesn't need True (weapon) as she has the much more versatile Slash. While True (weapon) doubles the weapon damage, Slash adds a D6 per point. 3pts of Slash is likely to incapacitate a foe on a single blow.

I agree.  I'd argue that Babs is a better combat cult than Humakt.  She doesn't need more goodies.

As David notes, Slash is roughly as good as Truesword.

They have several excellent spells with no equivalent in the Humakt list:

1. Earth Shield is awesome. 
2. Berserker and Small Elementals have their uses.
3. Heal Body can be a lifesaver in combat.  Down to 3 hit points and missing a leg?  No problem, all better!

They have a couple of Associated cults, so they recover rune points significantly faster.  This is a big limitation on our group's Humakti PC. 

And they don't have that whole "you only die once" problem.

[dumuzid]

I've been running the version of the Tolat cult practiced by the Marazi amazons and Zaranistangi as having True Sword and Sword Trance, given the importance of the mythical Red Sword(s) to them.  By the same token, the Artmal cult gains True Sword as an associated cult of Tolat's, through Tolat's mythical gifting of the (a?) Red Sword to Artmal at the end of the War in Heaven.

I've also long thought that the cult of Daxdarius, the mythical conquering king of Pelanda whose cult claims he invented hoplite warfare in north-central Genertela, should have True Spear.

Edited February 28, 2022 by dumuzid

[Akhôrahil]

Shargash - of all gods! - is (I think) the only one getting two True Weapons.

[Orlanthatemyhamster]

Yelmalio, Yelmalio does. 

[David Scott]

On 3/1/2022 at 2:06 PM, Akhôrahil said:

Shargash - of all gods! - is (I think) the only one getting two True Weapons.

Shargash gets True sword from his nephew Artmal

8 hours ago, Orlanthatemyhamster said:

Yelmalio, Yelmalio does. 

Not in RQG.

[Joerg]

6 hours ago, David Scott said:

Shargash gets True sword from his nephew Artmal

Weird - in the myth Artmal gets the sword from the Red Planet god.

[Godlearner]

17 hours ago, Orlanthatemyhamster said:

Yelmalio, Yelmalio does. 

There is a write up in White Dwarf #88 magazine of Yorocius which can be summoned in a temple of Yelm or Yelmalio and grants Truespear, Shield and Know Lie.

[Soccercalle]

I think that Humakti have a strong weakness in not being able to be resurrected. That should be compensated by having spells that other cults doesnt. True Sword is a strong war spell that doesnt belong to all fighting cults.

[Kloster]

57 minutes ago, Soccercalle said:

I think that Humakti have a strong weakness in not being able to be resurrected. That should be compensated by having spells that other cults doesnt. True Sword is a strong war spell that doesnt belong to all fighting cults.

The compensation for Humakti is reusable sever spirit.

[Soccercalle]

31 minutes ago, Kloster said:

The compensation for Humakti is reusable sever spirit.

That's true. I actually think that it makes the game better that there is different kind of strong rune spells for battle. We have Slash, True Sword, Berserker etc. If all warrior cults had the same battle spells (for example True (weapon) and Shield) it would be quite boring.