Keeping Glorantha Weird

[SevenSistersOfVinga]

Hello! 

I'm looking for ideas to spice things up. Mostly related to rune spells but I'll take any ideas.

Where do you stand between "Keeping it bronze" age and "Keep it fantastic", how weird does your magic go? Are your ghosts 'spirited away' style? Are your bear strength casters full blown werebears or at least shirt-ripping fma style? Are there ancient alien blasters or old abandoned buildings from before the monkeys took over glorantha? 

Are your shields glowing balls of lightning or dragon ball auras ?

How weird does it get? I guess most people keeps it close to bronze age, just with invisible armor and damage

I want to hear where you try (not always succeed) to make it fantastic or even better, making it weird. 

Followup question, to the ones that make it weird, does it ever gets out of hand?

Ty! 

[Godlearner]

Mine gets weird and funky since we often find the party go to other worlds, and sometimes things come to visit. 

[Eff]

I run Glorantha very weird by conventional fantasy standards and still fairly weird by my own. So there's Blue Moon hoverboats as a secret project, there's heroes jumping hundreds of feet in naval battles, there's lots of visible and immanent magic, people's tattoos glow, the gods regularly speak through their worshipers to have a chat with PCs, wyters and city-gods are a kind of genius loci able to influence the physical environment. It's fairly tilted towards an animistic view of reality despite having very few explicit shamans as prominent characters- things are mostly alive and mostly have personhood, and the struggles are often to successfully empathize with them or evoke empathy from them and achieve communication.

I think the best way to put it is that I'm inspired by how the novel Dream of the Red Chamber opens with a cosmic backdrop for its intimate story of family life and personal relationships. So my Glorantha runs in a kind of high-drama mode where the relationships between people are mirrors of the cosmos, and building these relationships shapes the universe. It's also very puckish and lighthearted, and exceptionally queer.

[Qizilbashwoman]

8 minutes ago, Eff said:

I run Glorantha very weird by conventional fantasy standards and still fairly weird by my own. So there's Blue Moon hoverboats as a secret project, there's heroes jumping hundreds of feet in naval battles, there's lots of visible and immanent magic, people's tattoos glow, the gods regularly speak through their worshipers to have a chat with PCs, wyters and city-gods are a kind of genius loci able to influence the physical environment. It's fairly tilted towards an animistic view of reality despite having very few explicit shamans as prominent characters- things are mostly alive and mostly have personhood, and the struggles are often to successfully empathize with them or evoke empathy from them and achieve communication.

I think the best way to put it is that I'm inspired by how the novel Dream of the Red Chamber opens with a cosmic backdrop for its intimate story of family life and personal relationships. So my Glorantha runs in a kind of high-drama mode where the relationships between people are mirrors of the cosmos, and building these relationships shapes the universe. It's also very puckish and lighthearted, and exceptionally queer.

so sort of classic greek mythology meets xianxia, then: it's what I call "the Exalted play-style"

[Eff]

1 minute ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

so sort of classic greek mythology meets xianxia, then: it's what I call "the Exalted play-style"

Sure, but less focused on the progress towards immortality of the cultivation novel/xianixa, and with a more novelistic psychology!

[MOB]

3 hours ago, SevenSistersOfVinga said:

How weird does it get?

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/372888/Black-Spear-RuneQuest

[SevenSistersOfVinga]

58 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

xianxia

Need to read about this.

[soltakss]

6 hours ago, SevenSistersOfVinga said:

I guess most people keeps it close to bronze age, just with invisible armor and damage

I keep Glorantha as strictly Bronze Age, with no extra fun at all.

Except for Bastard Swords, they aren't Bronze Age but I like them. Oh, and flying Moon Boats, and dragons, and cities with guilds, and demigods who you can visit, and HeroQuesting, and all kinds of stuff.

So, I keep whatever I want and call it Bronze Age, even the Iron Age, Heroic Age or Medieval stuff that I like to throw into the mix.

I like my Glorantha to be magical, and I don't mean just casting spells. Casting spells is on the first rung of the magical ladder. I like Adventurers to manipulate Runes, to control water, earth, air, fire, darkness and moon, to wield Truth as a weapon, or to hide with Illusion. In many ways, I like to treat abilities as keywords, things to build on and to use. I love it when Adventurers have two entirely separate abilities and think of cunning ways to use them together.

I like Adventurers who go to strange places, speak to demigods and heroes, awaken the spirits of long-dead Heroes, Demigods and Deities, bringing them back into worship.

My Adventurers speak with Cragspider, Ralzakark, Argrath, Harrek and the Red Emperor, doing deals with them, playing one off against the other.

I love using Elder Races imaginatively, to mess with Players' minds. 

I have been told that my Glorantha is Gonzo, but I don't really know what that means, the dictionary said something about being at the centre of things, so I am not sure how that applies.

My Glorantha is fun, it is deadly, it is exciting, is is enjoyable, it is Gonzo (?), it is me.

I don't think that is weird, though, is it?

After all, I'm not weird.

[soltakss]

Apparently, Gonzo means:

Definition of gonzo

adjective

(of journalism, reportage, etc.) filled with bizarre or subjective ideas, commentary, or the like.

crazy; eccentric.

noun

eccentricity, weirdness, or craziness.

So, not really me at all, then.

 

[svensson]

Ideally speaking, Glorantha should be like Portland OR.

Just when you think you've seen all the stupid, all the strange, all the 'that-boy-ain't-right', all the weirdness, you turn a corner and see.... this...

 

[SevenSistersOfVinga]

3 hours ago, soltakss said:

My Glorantha is fun, it is deadly, it is exciting, is is enjoyable, it is Gonzo (?), it is me.

Yes. I'm feeling this. I like that. 

3 hours ago, soltakss said:

I don't think that is weird, though, is it?

I hope it is

[JRE]

For me, Glorantha has four things that have kept me interested in it for over thirty years. And it is shared by other game settings that still interest me. The first three are interconnected.

- The overarching morality is grey, and what is good is usually subjective. A good part of the charm are the borders between cultures, where the definition of right changes suddenly. Not only trolls, but Orlanthi vs Lunar vs Solar. Relativism and subjective reality actually work in Glorantha. It is like a wikipedia page, and the Heroes and Heroines are those allowed to edit it.

- The main actors are all human, with their individual virtues, failings and personality, despite their power. IMG the gods are trapped and unable to act independently, glorified batteries to power the ambitions and aims of humans, and it is these humans who drive the story. For me it is a humanist world, and that is rare in fantasy RPGs. Also the roads to power are many, which allows different player concepts.

- The player characters matter, but they are also fragile. They can interact with powerful people, change history, discover world shattering secrets, and even change the gods, but they are also still humans, vulnerable and recognizable. The individual Hero is the main factor of change, not economic forces or divine manipulation. You do not need to make world shattering change, but the potential is there, as shown with Baroshi and Firshala already in the old scenarios.

- Despite the other three, it is intended to be fun, and clearly not the Real World. You have puns, film references, characters inspired by pop cultures, Kaijus, Dr. Seuss, moody teenagers with huge powers, and terrible puns. You can slapstick Disney and seriously channel Arnold's monosyllabic Conan. It is full of playful reminders that this is just a game, and that if you want to take it seriously you can, but that is what you put in it, not the only way, not the "official" way. The sex is always great, magic can solve almost anything if you just find the right one, and usually there is always another way.

As you can see I did not mention Bronze. For me it is a gimmick, a shortcut to mentally prepare players to something different, where religions were personal and things seemed simpler. But it is not a tool to explore our bronze age, as you have a mish mash of technologies. but it takes players out of the pseudo middle ages fantasy paradigm, and only for that it has merit. But most of the inspirational cultures are iron age and beyond, but without iron.

[Darius West]

14 hours ago, soltakss said:

Except for Bastard Swords, they aren't Bronze Age but I like them. 

Bronze Age ain't always Bronze Age.  IMG bastard swords are a product of Jrusteli cavalry reforms, much like the stirrup and the chimney.

[SevenSistersOfVinga]

37 minutes ago, JRE said:

But it is not a tool to explore our bronze age, as you have a mish mash of technologies. but it takes players out of the pseudo middle ages fantasy paradigm, and only for that it has merit

We have probably failed on all 4 to be fair. 

I ... think I get it. Maybe I don't but that helps too. 

[Joerg]

52 minutes ago, Darius West said:

Bronze Age ain't always Bronze Age.  IMG bastard swords are a product of Jrusteli cavalry reforms, much like the stirrup and the chimney.

People are over-crediting the Jrusteli for technological advances. True, the Zistorites did bring a few more mechanisms into the fold of Mostali-rip-off designs commonly used by sorcerers and natural philosophers, but much of that was based on magic rather than mechanics.

Stirrups aren't something I would credit the Jrusteli with. They may have come into contact with those when dealing with the Pure Horse Folk of Prax. They may have adopted them quickly throughout their empire, though.

I have seen people claiming General Kastok's successes in cavalry battles against the Pentans attributed to the introduction of stirrups.

 

WRT keeping things weird, I like to create some sense of things being normal, including things we aren't used from other settings (including our own reality). And going beyond that weirdness when things get more magical, or when the players tread the borderland regions of the Hero Plane (usually not a geographical border but one of magical influences and rituals).

Edited June 5, 2022 by Joerg

[SevenSistersOfVinga]

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

IMG bastard swords are a product of Jrusteli cavalry reforms,

A lot about technology is implementation and adoption, we have robots who perform complex procedures just not everywhere.

37 minutes ago, Joerg said:

when the players tread the borderland regions of the Hero Plane

We spend more of time on the shadowlands of the spirit world, what's with the hero plane?

[Joerg]

4 minutes ago, SevenSistersOfVinga said:

We spend more of time on the shadowlands of the spirit world, what's with the hero plane?

It may take a certain level of knowing your mythology, but sometimes a constellation of protagonists and antagonists may be reminiscent of a myth you know, and your (or their) perception of what is going on may shift.

In heroquesting territory, there is a concept called identity challenge, where you can take on the powers of a deity by declaring yourself as such. This also works on your opponents, you can use taunts to identify them as a certain mythical opponent (which usually will be received as an insult, but might on occasion be taken up by a genre-savvy oppnent willing to outsmart you). Once an identification sets in, new vulnerabilities and abilities may show up.

In full hero plane mode, the identity challenge may already decide the outcome of a certain scene, or define the field of challenge (such as forcing a fighter to come into a contest of strength rather than weapons).

Greg Staffords short story "Morden Defends the Camp" has a couple of such confrontations, with the protagonist being clever as well as tough.

[jajagappa]

On 6/4/2022 at 7:56 AM, SevenSistersOfVinga said:

Where do you stand between "Keeping it bronze" age and "Keep it fantastic", how weird does your magic go?

While I keep the human world "bronze age" (in a very loose sense - i.e. I don't spend a lot of time elaborating on details), there's always fantastic elements.

• Magic is perceptible (and colorful)
• The Spirit World can be quite close (and is very colorful, strange, and dream-like if you get there)
• In certain places, it can be very easy to shift into the Otherworld (e.g. in one recent game, the characters were at the Wild Temple, and as several approached the center of it, they found themselves near the Axis Mundi/World Tree, and talking with Cragspider)
• Dwarfs are always strange - and have an array of tasks to perform related to strange, otherwise unidentified objects (e.g. stone cubicles aboveground that are left as replenishment stations for those dwarfs on aboveground missions - they store tin cans filled with various liquids)
• Dragonewts are even stranger - and do and say totally random, usually nonsensical, things

 

[JRE]

6 hours ago, SevenSistersOfVinga said:

We have probably failed on all 4 to be fair. 

I ... think I get it. Maybe I don't but that helps too. 

It was a general overview, rather than actually answering your questions, and it is clearly my Glorantha. I do not expect others to follow, except point four. Point four is the most important.

Each magic has its own feel and appeareance. A few cults have discreet magic, applying to specific spells, but usually it is evident, and it is impossible to mistake Protection for Shield. One of the reasons sorcerers are feared outside the West is that their magic is subtle, although it gets visible as you use more magic points. More magic, bigger visible and detectable effects. A Shield 10 can be detected over 100 m away, and seen 1000 m away, while a Heal 1 would be seen only at 50 m and felt only 5 m away.

I have many magical effects unlinked to spells. It may be spirits, or the community spirits, or genuus loci, but traveling you can see the river spirit dancing, the wind spirits playing in the barley, the community knowing when something bad has happened, even if they do not know what, or feel the happiness or dislike of the ancestors. A humakti can sharpen a sword without a whetsone, can sense when someone is close to death, knows how hurt they themselves are at all times, know if a weapon has killed, but not when or what, and any other death and truth related effect the player can convince me.

[Darius West]

I like to juxtapose my weirdness with gritty realism.  Bandit ducks will have feather diseases from living rough.  Your spells may light up like a fluorescent tubes, but you are still wearing scavenged sandals that have given you flat feet due to your low strength and the weight of your armor and pack.  Yeah, and just because you are an adventurer and sometimes a hero doesn't mean you can duck your financial obligations.  

Glorantha owes a lot to the Sword and Sorcery genre from its inception, but it is a different animal.  Yes, there are axe armed barbarians stalking ruins filled with weird monsters that will make you do a horrified spit-take when you meet them, but those barbarians aren't hostile to magic, and in fact will likely have quite a bit of their own to buff their skills.  

Glorantha is also all about mythology being brought to life.  Stepping onto the Hero Plane is every bit like when Dorothy wakes up in Oz and the film is in color.  The spirit plane is a psychedelic nightmare that periodically morphs back into the plains of Prax (or wherever) like a peyote trip.  When you meet a god, they morph between their aspects as you speak to them, often appearing to have multiple arms and faces.   Chaos when you meet it physically blights these places like an ugly acidic stain that eats at reality.

I find Glorantha works best when you merge the mundane and the fantastic.  I mean, consider newtlings, they're kind of amazing little frog-guys, but you will still cuff them round the ear-holes when you discover that they have been noshing on fish guts that are supposed to be curing into garam for sale to the Lunar occupiers.  You have to make rent like everyone else, and if you live in Glorantha, newtlings are nothing special.  The pleasure and the shock of Glorantha is making the mundane fantastic and the fantastic mundane.  Therein lies the frisson and the shock.  Ultimately you come to think like a local.

[Rodney Dangerduck]

In our group, nobody gives a crap about it being "bronze age".  We go for the weird, magical, dramatic, humorous, and fantastic.

[SevenSistersOfVinga]

19 hours ago, jajagappa said:

The Spirit World can be quite close (and is very colorful, strange, and dream-like if you get there)

Seems like the easiest to me, as a source of weirdness. 

I'm taking your notes on the axis mundi.

What about the magic (rune mainly) does it glow faintly, almost imperceptible to the common eye or it blasts the ears of the soldiers around and Summons awe and fear all the same?

[SevenSistersOfVinga]

15 hours ago, JRE said:

A humakti can sharpen a sword without a whetsone, can sense when someone is close to death, knows how hurt they themselves are at all times, know if a weapon has killed, but not when or what, and any other death and truth related effect the player can convince me.

Just every one of them? The true gist of my original question is that I'm torn between a truly magical experience (let's say ... mononoke hime) and not ending like the mmo main square where everyone glows. I want the magic but despise the generic.

[JRE]

 

36 minutes ago, SevenSistersOfVinga said:

Just every one of them? The true gist of my original question is that I'm torn between a truly magical experience (let's say ... mononoke hime) and not ending like the mmo main square where everyone glows. I want the magic but despise the generic.

This is my own take to make magic part of the world. Of course the experience is skewed toward Player characters, but I also add some minor magic associated with high rune affinity and cult. Small prayers and limited to mundane effects.

Like the Orlanthi ability to predict the weather, I play that Ernaldans know when someone or something is pregnant, high death rune kills small animals or even the grass if you lay on it several hours. High Harmony lets you know who you need to convince to stop a bar fight, and a high Disorder knows who to throw a tankard so it starts. A Yelmite knows at a look the hierarchy of everyone in the room (which may be unrelated to the real power), while an Issaries knows when a deal is bad, even if they do not know why (a fake, they intend to rob you, or you are buying stolen goods...).

It reinforces the usefulness of the cult as occupation if a Barntar initiate is good at working with oxen unused to him, or instinctively knows how deep to plow as a function of the intended crop. And at the same time, there is always a certain doubt. Has the Barntari repaired the ox harness just with a touch and a whisper, or does he have Repair? Is magic what lets him know when the crop is ripe, or skill? But with similar skill, a CA initiate will always be more effective than a LM when preparing healing herbs, and a high life rune will also help (even if you do not use the rune to boost), so the CA will usually go ahead. 

Normally no rolls, as you can often retry with no penalty, and the effects should be minor.

[SevenSistersOfVinga]

59 minutes ago, JRE said:

A Yelmite knows at a look the hierarchy of everyone in the room

The one on our table has learn to (ab)use her battle lore rating so she can read soldiers and guards, who was drinking the night before, who takes care of their gear, who is slow or maybe has a bad knee, who should be dealt first and who may end up running away. 

Thanks for the detailed explanation I'm definitely going to try this. 

1 hour ago, JRE said:

Normally no rolls, as you can often retry with no penalty, and the effects should be minor

Got it.