Cult Rankings

[Bill the barbarian]

9 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

For GMs who have dealt with Yelmalian PCs (or other "weaker" cults), what have you done to make those players feel more relevant?  Lots of stuff at night?  Anything else?

 

Easy! As with Eff, I had the players craft a little of their clan (fundamentals, rich or poor, valley or woods, large or small) and then had them create their stead.
As they were a poorer stead, for a start we had an Ernaldan cow-herd... an Orlanthi Fisherwoman, and a Yinkin Hunter (just fo a start). The party took care of such details and felt an affinity having had a chance to build it as they wished. 

Having a good group helped.

[Eff]

10 hours ago, Martin Dick said:

So, campaign context matters and aligning your player character to fit in with the campaign context isn't really min/maxing to me, it's just being a collaborative player. So looking at this campaign context, where you are playing classic RQ2 scenarios, then you know that there's going to be quite a lot of combat (and the rest of the party are not exactly combat monsters), so in my opinion it's not min/maxing to want to have a character that can actually participate in the battles and have an influence. 

So, if you are happy to play an Orlanthi, I think it's not min/maxing. But looking at that group, it would likely be that the character's role will be Combat Monster, so you should be prepared to head down that path. But if you don't want to play an Orlanthi and really want to play the Engizi fisherman, then yes, you are low-level min-maxing (min-maxing is a range not a black or white thing). 

My advice as a min-maxer would be to use one of your rune points to dual initiate in to Engizi and Orlanth Thunderous (great Associate Cult spells) it's not a problem as they are associated cults and an emergency Thunderbolt is better than an emergency Lightning, make sure you generate a decent combat skill during character creation and get some Protection 😈 plus I'm sure that you could come up with a great roleplaying concept to go along with the min-maxing

 

Well, that's the thing- Engizi is only a fishing cult in that you get cult skills of Boat, Swim, and Boatspeech. I got Swim up to 75% at character creation, so I wouldn't benefit from training there, and I concluded that as a fisher this character probably focused on traps and weirs and a bit of line fishing rather than nets, so Boat wasn't as essential to be high (and that was purely self-justification, there's no real mechanical reason why you'd have to alternate the two ordinarily).

But I don't really see the synergy between being a frontline combatant and Engizi because Engizi's Rune magic mostly involves being a backline combatant- you have summoning spells, you have Fireshield as a defensive buff. And Strongnet. And then for cult spirit magic you have Shimmer as a ranged defensive buff spell, you have Coordination and Mobility, which marginally buff weapons skills but together drop SR by 2, allowing you to act faster. (Along with "utility" things like Glue, Extinguish, and Rivereyes.) And that's why I went with Vinga as the character's cult. Engizi does synch well with an Orlanth Thunderous "caster" character, of course.

Now, all of this shaped the character in the process of making her, because I did character creation by the book and started with characteristics most appropriate to a frontline fighter, and then from there I thought of some bum who fools around with fishing line all day but can actually fight with that spearfishing equipment and things went from there.

Which is probably why it doesn't count as min-maxing- I had a character intention that wasn't just "warrior" and went for her. But of course, wanting to be a cool, noble fighter, or a brutal noble fighter, these are basic character types in the kind of genres Runequest frequently is adjacent to. That desire is immediately understandable. (Which is why I do think that some kind of cool spear-only magic would be a good addition via unofficial writing, because we've got nifty sword and axe and mace material, but spears are also a cool aesthetic and there's room to work with them.)

1 hour ago, Bill the barbarian said:

 

A truly great character Eff. Great to see her in play!

Thanks Bill! I really enjoyed playing her!

[Bill the barbarian]

4 minutes ago, Eff said:

Thanks Bill! I really enjoyed playing her!

Here’s hoping the Seeping Willows Stead lives again! There are trolls to befriend!

Edited June 4, 2022 by Bill the barbarian

[Jape_Vicho]

17 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

For GMs who have dealt with Yelmalian PCs (or other "weaker" cults), what have you done to make those players feel more relevant?  Lots of stuff at night?  Anything else?

Had a Yelmalion from the Elmal subcult (I made it myself and it was sort of a worse version of Yelmalio with some horse magic) when playing the GM Adventure Pack. He had no feelings of irrelevancy whatsoever. Two of his companions were a Humakti duck and a very strong troll, who were far more brutal in combat than him, but he was not a magikarp either, he had a trusty composite bow in which he was pretty efficient. 

I always try to make a sort of subplot for each character to develop on its own and have some spotlight.

[Akhôrahil]

On 6/3/2022 at 6:57 PM, Eff said:

Well, within the current fiction (https://www.facebook.com/groups/RuneQuest/permalink/1792462364263088/), Humakti make up about 4% of the (adult) population of Sartar, and Babeester Gori make up about 1% of the (adult) population of Sartar, and in a median clan of around 1100-1200 people, there are going to be an average of 50-55 people in those two cults as part of the clan.

Do we know what percentage of Sartarites are professional warriors (as this is essentially the only job for these cults, and there will for a certainty be professional warriors in other cults)? 5-10% sounds really high.

[Shiningbrow]

On 6/4/2022 at 12:57 AM, Eff said:

 

Well, within the current fiction (https://www.facebook.com/groups/RuneQuest/permalink/1792462364263088/), Humakti make up about 4% of the (adult) population of Sartar, and Babeester Gori make up about 1% of the (adult) population of Sartar, and in a median clan of around 1100-1200 people, there are going to be an average of 50-55 people in those two cults as part of the clan. Even for a small clan of 500, you'd have 5 BG and 20 Humakti on average. So just on the basis of pure numbers, there are clearly a substantial number of people in these cults, enough for there to be actual communities of them even in rural underpopulated parts of Sartar. 

And similarly, Heler, Odayla, and Yinkin rate as minor cults with less than 0.5% of the (adult) population each, Rigsdal doesn't even rate a mention, and while Yelmalio is more common than either, Yelmalio is also, again within the current fiction (https://www.facebook.com/groups/RuneQuest/permalink/1795919117250746/) a regional cult of the Vaantar Sun Dome and Alda-Chur and Alone. Storm Bull is at least common, midway between Humakt and BG. 

And that's one crux here- the visions of Glorantha you two have are not quite what is intended from the Chaosium end of things, and are of course variants... in fairly important ways for what ordinary social existence looks like. 

But another crux here is that the rarity of cults doesn't matter, because player characters are not being produced via random sampling from this imaginary population, they are being created deliberately in accordance with the player's intentions and those of the group and with the knowledge of the setting that's before them. 

I think it's somewhat interesting that Humakt and Babeester Gor are seen as intrinsically prone to min-maxing and needing to be restricted somehow, because it almost implies a kind of yearning for a more balanced Glorantha, though one where the haughty with their trances have been slightly humbled. 

I just came across this.. .sure, it's a bit old, and Greg has probably Gregged himself, but still.....

 

https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/gloranthan-documents/greg-sez/how-many-humakti/

 

His final breakdown -

• 2 dominant clans with 250 Humakti each, for a total of 500.
• 22 clans with 25 Humakti specialists each, for a total of 550.
• 188 clans with 4 Humakti each, for a total of 750.
• 28 clans with no Humakti at all, since they have other deities as dominant (Chalana Arroy, Kolat, etc.), for a total of 0.

 

Total: 1800 worshippers (initiate, devotee, and the very rare disciple).

[Eff]

8 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

I just came across this.. .sure, it's a bit old, and Greg has probably Gregged himself, but still.....

 

https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/gloranthan-documents/greg-sez/how-many-humakti/

 

His final breakdown -

• 2 dominant clans with 250 Humakti each, for a total of 500.
• 22 clans with 25 Humakti specialists each, for a total of 550.
• 188 clans with 4 Humakti each, for a total of 750.
• 28 clans with no Humakti at all, since they have other deities as dominant (Chalana Arroy, Kolat, etc.), for a total of 0.

 

Total: 1800 worshippers (initiate, devotee, and the very rare disciple).

That's why I specified "the current fiction", because this has changed.

[Shiningbrow]

2 hours ago, Eff said:

That's why I specified "the current fiction", because this has changed.

I was more interested/focussed on how it was divided, rather than the actual numbers - some clans having lots, some clans having none. And, I notice Greg is using older terms for ranks within the cult.

So, how many of the number you have arrived at (4% of adults) going to be full initiates? Versus merely Lay Members??

[Eff]

3 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

I was more interested/focussed on how it was divided, rather than the actual numbers - some clans having lots, some clans having none. And, I notice Greg is using older terms for ranks within the cult.

So, how many of the number you have arrived at (4% of adults) going to be full initiates? Versus merely Lay Members??

I'm going to assume full initiates, because other comments from Jeff have indicated that the majority of people who take part in fighting are lay members of Humakt, for example. Which would suggest a very different Sartar if the 4% number covered the majority of people who engage in organized violence!

(Also, the numbers don't allow for much overlap, so it probably has to be initiates from that alone.)

[RandomNumber]

On 6/1/2022 at 5:34 AM, Jeff said:

This entire discussion is so far away from the approach that anyone on our design team takes as to be almost painful to read. This is like a glimpse through a glass darkly into a strange Bizarro dimension.

I couldn’t read much of this thread - it seems like it’s way too easy to overthink this whole topic and the framing is one that surely isn’t available to the inhabitants of Glorantha. Does anyone choose which terrestrial religion to follow based on such “rational” analysis? My group just play the gods that seem fun and interesting and although we are long-time RQ players we are far from being Gloranthan scholars.

It wasn’t until these threads started up that I discovered Yelmalio is allegedly not such a great cult (whatever that means). We don’t check the spell lists… Yelmalio is awesome and evokes the feel of the Sun Dome and his community so well. Our campaigns tend to be pretty low level (we like the scrappy, young adventurer vibe of RQ2) - perhaps the differences only become apparent at the higher echelons of runic achievement. We’ll carry on doing what we’ve been doing.  

Unless I’ve misunderstood, what strikes me about this thread is the gap between the way RQG’s creators envision it and the way some of its most ardent players/supporters run it. YGMV indeed!

[Soccercalle]

If Yelmalio will get Shield from Yelm. Does that mean that Yelmalio loses Sunspear?

[jajagappa]

9 hours ago, Soccercalle said:

If Yelmalio will get Shield from Yelm. Does that mean that Yelmalio loses Sunspear?

No, but as before only certain cult ranks can gain Sunspear.

[icebrand]

4 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

No, but as before only certain cult ranks can gain Sunspear.

So, basically rq2 yelmalio with extras!!! 

Not bad, not bad at all! They become badass once more!

[Akhôrahil]

7 hours ago, icebrand said:

So, basically rq2 yelmalio with extras!!! 

Not bad, not bad at all! They become badass once more!

I don't think one-use Sunspear for High Priests matters much. 

Shield on the other hand, does. It's the difference between a functional but unimpressive fighting cult, and mere crud magically speaking.

Edited June 24, 2022 by Akhôrahil

[jajagappa]

3 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Shield on the other hand, does. It's the difference between a functional but unimpressive fighting cult, and mere crud magically speaking.

And since Yelmalio gets Shield from Yelm, there's really no issue here.

[Scotty]

3 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Shield on the other hand, does. It's the difference between a functional but unimpressive fighting cult, and mere crud magically speaking.

It has now been repeated many times. Yelmalio gets shield from Yelm as an associate cult. It's in the Q&A. No need to keep bringing it up

[soltakss]

3 hours ago, Scotty said:

No need to keep bringing it up

Yelmalio fans never stop whingeing.

 

[Akhôrahil]

10 hours ago, jajagappa said:

And since Yelmalio gets Shield from Yelm, there's really no issue here.

That was my point. It turns Yelmalio into a functioning warrior cult. It’s a big deal

Edited June 24, 2022 by Akhôrahil

[French Desperate WindChild]

9 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

That was my point. It turns Yelmalio into a functioning warrior cult. It’s a big deal

and fully consistent with their role :

to stand and protect, never flee, never fall

they should not be conqueror but defender, the last light, the resistance center

[Akhôrahil]

2 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

never fall

Or perhaps rather, as the song has it, ”I get knocked down, but I get up again
You are never gonna keep me down”

[Lordabdul]

On 6/24/2022 at 8:59 AM, soltakss said:

Yelmalio fans never stop whingeing.

Well it checks out -- Yelmalio is all about keeping up the fight, even when they have nothing left to fight with 😄

[Shiningbrow]

5 hours ago, Ludovic aka Lordabdul said:

Well it checks out -- Yelmalio is all about keeping up the fight, even when they have nothing left to fight with 😄

Except, some have the Geas - Never flog a dead horse to death....

[Ironwall]

1 minute ago, Shiningbrow said:

Never flog a dead horse

I'm gonna have to use this in my games now

[French Desperate WindChild]

3 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Except, some have the Geas - Never flog a dead horse to death....

are you demonstrating Ethilrist is a yelmalio runemaster ?

Edited June 29, 2022 by French Desperate WindChild

[soltakss]

On 6/29/2022 at 5:00 AM, Shiningbrow said:

Except, some have the Geas - Never flog a dead horse to death....

Never flog a dead horse to death needlessly