DI to resurrect in battle

[svensson]

Well again, all of this speculation is fine so long as the great question of every referee everywhere is answered:

"Does what I'm about to do tell a good story or augment the story I'm telling?'

If the players are using a DI frivolously trying to avoid a plot hook or skip a difficult part of the story, they should fail every time. If the DI is out of desperation because the dice didn't go their way, well, they're already paying a Hell of a cost in lost POW points. In this case maybe being harsh with the atonement and penance may not be the best thing for the story in question.

But it all comes down to the story in the end.

[French Desperate WindChild]

4 hours ago, svensson said:

OK, with the geasa it would be something like 'never accept magical healing'... OK, who forbids you magical healing? Your deity, the source of the geas. So, if your deity heals you,

What I m saying is there is no "if your deity heals you" when your deity forbids you (I fully agree what you say, the god is the origin)

I mean there is always another way

If I am Humakt, and an Humakti ask me a DI, it may be

"help me to win this battle" and I enjoy it. I will not heal my nice worshipper as I said you cannot, you must not be healed.

What can I do ? maybe I will give her additional life (+ CON bonus), I don't heal her, every round her blood will splash the ground, every round she will suffer her wounds, but she will continue the battle in my name. And if she is totally devoted to the death, if she thanks me to my gift, if she accepts to die with honour at the battle end, maybe maybe, I will continue until she ... naturally, heals her wounds. Because she is more precious alive than dead. But no,never I would heal her if I have forbidden it

I know it is more semantic than something else, but fix breachs is different to add more walls 🙂

 

now if the humakti ask me "help me to heal my wounds" hummm I would accept to raise CON for any resitance test or things like that, but I will not give her any HP

 

4 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Tests of faith and tests of character are all over our mythology - Abraham about to sacrifice his son, Jesus being tempted in the desert, etc.

Yes that is true, there is a lot of tests. And if Abraham or Jesus ask their god to do something against the faith, what did happen ?

the point is not what pc do, pc can ask something against their faith, and that is part of tragedy , so good storytelling. The point is should the god answer positively to a "wrong" request ?.

 

Note again, that my gloranthan gods decide, they don't just apply what is requested.

If you play your gloranthan gods as "source of" (spell / divination / DI etc ...) it is sure that logically the consequence should be :

4 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

And if you ask your god to do something against its nature - sure, grant it, but it will wreck your progress towards being more like that god, unless you can heroquest to prove that it was in keeping with the god after all somehow.

 

[Monty Lovering]

On 8/1/2022 at 9:50 PM, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Yes, the DI should fit the deity.  In our campaign, an NPC Storm Khan led an expedition under the Big Rubble into a maze of Krarshtkid tunnels that our party had discovered and briefly scouted.  They ran into serious trouble.  His DI did stuff to help their party, (I presume some heals, Impede Chaos, etc...) and to Tport his Ernaldan wife to safety.  But no way that Storm Bull will "save" you againt chaos.

A song about Khan Orat (based on Lord Franklin) here:

http://gloranthagame.pbworks.com/w/page/143253243/Khan_Orat

 

Those tunnels and DI.

Funnily enough on Monday my lot got a bit too confident in the tunnels beneath the Devil’s Playground. They’d found the centre of the hive and the Queen krarshtkid (I played around with the source) and the Humakti basically told everyone to leg it whilst he was all noble and held them back with Sword Trance and True Sword up the wazoo. All going well, then he got a gob of spit in the face obscuring his vision. 

He saved a trollkin some time back who has basically stayed on as a paid assistant, and they’d hung back to light his way to safety, but now blinded he tells the trollkin to flee )as he was basically going down in the next round or two) and the trollkin DI’d (losing 11 POW but repaying the life debt) to whisk them to safety. 

 

[svensson]

7 minutes ago, Monty Lovering said:

Those tunnels and DI.

Funnily enough on Monday my lot got a bit too confident in the tunnels beneath the Devil’s Playground. They’d found the centre of the hive and the Queen krarshtkid (I played around with the source) and the Humakti basically told everyone to leg it whilst he was all noble and held them back with Sword Trance and True Sword up the wazoo. All going well, then he got a gob of spit in the face obscuring his vision. 

He saved a trollkin some time back who has basically stayed on as a paid assistant, and they’d hung back to light his way to safety, but now blinded he tells the trollkin to flee )as he was basically going down in the next round or two) and the trollkin DI’d (losing 11 POW but repaying the life debt) to whisk them to safety. 

 

As far as I'm concerned, that was the PERFECT ruling on the situation.

It knitted the story, the player choices, and subplot together in a very elegant narrative. Nice work on your part but also nice work on the Humakti's part to play the cult so well.

Two 'sidebar' things:

1. It would be great if the trollkin somehow got a player to play him earning initiation into Humakt [a stone bitch when you've only got a POW of 1 to 3 pts], and

2. I LOVE the idea of a 'krarshtkid queen'. That instantly went IMGU.

[Monty Lovering]

On 7/29/2022 at 5:30 PM, Soccercalle said:

How do you let your PCs use Divine Intervention in a battle you are losing? My question is if a DI can be used to resurrect AND teleport to safety at the same time. Its of little help if your Orlanthi Wind Lord resurrects himself with DI and find himself alone and without RP surrounded by 5 Yanafal Tarnils Scimitars. Would Orlanth in that case resurrect him but also bring him to a safe position? Or is that another DI?

Well, if it’s a considered request, then they get to phrase the request. Can include others whether they like it or not. “Take me and my companions to our camp”, maybe some healing too  

If it’s a mortal blow that they’d be aware of then they get their life saved in an appropriate manner. Time to call upon their god as they stare at the transfixing spear and cough up blood but not to specify things. The dying character will end up in the nearest Holy Place of that god.

If it’s a headshot that instakills, then unless it’s actual decapitation (when they would still have the ‘oh so that’s what my body looks like Orlanth save me’ moment, then no DI. 

They dead. Nothing to consciously DI with, and if they’re already dead then they’re dead.

 

[svensson]

1 minute ago, Monty Lovering said:

Well, if it’s a considered request, then they get to phrase the request. Can include others whether they like it or not. “Take me and my companions to our camp”, maybe some healing too  

If it’s a mortal blow that they’d be aware of then they get their life saved in an appropriate manner. Time to call upon their god as they stare at the transfixing spear and cough up blood but not to specify things. The dying character will end up in the nearest Holy Place of that god.

If it’s a headshot that instakills, then unless it’s actual decapitation (when they would still have the ‘oh so that’s what my body looks like Orlanth save me’ moment, then no DI. 

They dead. Nothing to consciously DI with, and if they’re already dead then they’re dead.

 

Well, there I'm gonna disagree a bit here.

Glorantha mythology says the soul stays near the corpse for a short time and may petition for DI in the immediate moments after death.

HOWEVER, I agree that once the soul departs on its journey to Hell, absolutely NOTHING will resurrect the worshiper... not even the direct actions of Chalana Arroy. The major guarantee of Humakt is that their souls and corpses are inviolate after death. The only proviso is if the soul is captured before death, such as what happened to Hofstaring Treeleaper or if a Humakti is a victim of a Thanatari headhunter.

[Shiningbrow]

On 8/3/2022 at 4:29 PM, PhilHibbs said:

Not sure I agree. Tests of faith and tests of character are all over our mythology - Abraham about to sacrifice his son, Jesus being tempted in the desert, etc.

And if you ask your god to do something against its nature - sure, grant it, but it will wreck your progress towards being more like that god, unless you can heroquest to prove that it was in keeping with the god after all somehow.

I totally agree.

The gods don't actually - can't actually - care about their followers. Their followers are inside Time - they aren't!

So, the god will only do what the god does - regardless of whether it fits in with the PC's plans or not - and geasa are very much not what the PCs want. And sometimes, neither is the way a DI is answered.

[French Desperate WindChild]

3 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

The gods don't actually - can't actually - care about their followers. Their followers are inside Time - they aren't!

but orlanth-jeff was able to say the pcs where was the lunar army (white bull campain) : where and how long time from Boldhome (If I remember, in all case from a big city). I agree that this notion of time is more a distance than a real duration.

but in Nochet you were able to walk among the gods

but during the dragon kill, Yelmalio refused to save a lot of his sons because he was shameful (sun county supplement)

but in any divination, gods are able to answer more or less where is the target right now

 

I thing the" outside time " does'nt mean they are not here now, It means (at least for me to stay in -my- "logical and magical" world) :

they cannot change, cannot progress, cannot create (all these things that are "allowed by" or "represents" the time : before and after)

they cannot decide by themselves when to act, they need a trigger, a time trigger (the mundane worshipper).

maybe they cannot measure the time (it was 10 years ago vs it was in the past)

 

I see them as "frozen people", but conscious of the world because their worshippers give them enough information to "stay" connected but not enough to "target", "select" by themselves. They are blind but the worshippers whisper them what happens.

They cannot by themselves, but they can, they are gods not dead gods

[Shiningbrow]

32 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

but orlanth-jeff was able to say the pcs where was the lunar army (white bull campain) : where and how long time from Boldhome (If I remember, in all case from a big city). I agree that this notion of time is more a distance than a real duration.

but in Nochet you were able to walk among the gods

but during the dragon kill, Yelmalio refused to save a lot of his sons because he was shameful (sun county supplement)

but in any divination, gods are able to answer more or less where is the target right now

 

I thing the" outside time " does'nt mean they are not here now, It means (at least for me to stay in -my- "logical and magical" world) :

they cannot change, cannot progress, cannot create (all these things that are "allowed by" or "represents" the time : before and after)

they cannot decide by themselves when to act, they need a trigger, a time trigger (the mundane worshipper).

maybe they cannot measure the time (it was 10 years ago vs it was in the past)

 

I see them as "frozen people", but conscious of the world because their worshippers give them enough information to "stay" connected but not enough to "target", "select" by themselves. They are blind but the worshippers whisper them what happens.

They cannot by themselves, but they can, they are gods not dead gods

The way I'm interpreting this is that the gods are therefore able to have plots and agendas regarding things that happen in the middle world, but only having access to information provided by their followers.

And, thus, the gods could manipulate those followers to have their wishes fulfilled, D&D like. (Lunars excepted)

I don't see Glorantha working like that. I see the gods as not even half-conscious of the middle world, and once they answer a DI or Divination, have basically no recollection of it ever happening (as, in their Time, it didn't).

Of course, this is my Glorantha...

[JRE]

I play the gods as computers. If you push the right buttons, something happens reliably. As they have access to the information of their worshippers, they can answer questions related to that. If orlanthi in the same time frame as you are, know where the Lunars are, Orlanth may tell you, but it does not require any volition from Orlanth's part. And remember Orlanth has other worshippers within time: Sylphs, wind children, spirits... It is not just the humans.

I see the limitations to Divination in the rulebook as highlighting this lack of volition. However let's remember this is a game, so if we need to get the heroes somewhere, the divination will point them in the right direction, because we want to get to the fun part, not the wandering around with no idea what to do part, unless that is fun for you...

[Bill the barbarian]

12 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Of course, this is my Glorantha...

My favourite expression! Too many tell ya it has to be certain way! I think it is my and my player's Glorantha and I hate when someone tells me we are doing it wrong because we am not doing like them when we are having fun!

Edited August 10, 2022 by Bill the barbarian

[Ali the Helering]

2 hours ago, JRE said:

I play the gods as computers. If you push the right buttons, something happens reliably. As they have access to the information of their worshippers, they can answer questions related to that.

I once played the gods as computers in an odd (and utterly unsuccessful) RQ / Ringworld crossover - mistress Uz as Protectors etc etc

[Monty Lovering]

22 hours ago, svensson said:

As far as I'm concerned, that was the PERFECT ruling on the situation.

It knitted the story, the player choices, and subplot together in a very elegant narrative. Nice work on your part but also nice work on the Humakti's part to play the cult so well.

Two 'sidebar' things:

1. It would be great if the trollkin somehow got a player to play him earning initiation into Humakt [a stone bitch when you've only got a POW of 1 to 3 pts], and

2. I LOVE the idea of a 'krarshtkid queen'. That instantly went IMGU.

Screenshot of the Queen off my battle sheet.

She’s a bit spicy.

I also have spawn.  They range from 1 hit location 3AP 3HP nuisances to half size normal. 

It kinda made sense there’d be an ecosystem. 

And thanks! re. the DI. It worked well, narratively. 

Frank (the trollkin) is most definitely not a hero, and even though Bartath, the Humakti, is actually a member of Zarka Sword-Alone (weird ass Humakt hero-cult founded by a troll), it’s not Frank’s path. 

Now he’s got his life debt out the way he’s going to found a chitin craft shop in Pavis (he’s a paid NPC with a share in the loot, so has savings), and maybe in time further pursue his interest in freedom for trollkin. 

If I’d played Frank (originally called Shame Us by his brother who the party rescued him from) as a more martial personality then your idea would be perfect. But his brother used to make him take part in bare knuckle fights and fighting is just not his scene. 

[svensson]

10 hours ago, JRE said:

I play the gods as computers. If you push the right buttons, something happens reliably. As they have access to the information of their worshippers, they can answer questions related to that. If orlanthi in the same time frame as you are, know where the Lunars are, Orlanth may tell you, but it does not require any volition from Orlanth's part. And remember Orlanth has other worshippers within time: Sylphs, wind children, spirits... It is not just the humans.

I see the limitations to Divination in the rulebook as highlighting this lack of volition. However let's remember this is a game, so if we need to get the heroes somewhere, the divination will point them in the right direction, because we want to get to the fun part, not the wandering around with no idea what to do part, unless that is fun for you...

I can sort-of see your point there... cults depend on a certain reliability from their gods... but I really hesitate to call a deity like Orlanth a 'computer'.

IMGU, the gods have agendas in addition to cult hierarchies and the desires of individual worshipers and I perceive all three to be VERY different things. In the case of Orlanth, his agenda is first and foremost to defeat the Red Goddess as a direct threat to his authority and position as King of the Middle Air. The second item on his agenda is to help regrow his cult after 20 years of suppression and inquisition. In order to do either one of these things he requires the POW sacrifices of his cult and his individual worshipers, therefore he must be sensitive to the needs of his cult and the wishes/desires/requests of his worshipers all the way down to the 16 year-old newly initiated Orlkarth Oskarsson who is praying fervently to Orlanth that Ernaldissa Vandanding the next stead over 'notices him'.

[Bill the barbarian]

9 hours ago, Ali the Helering said:

I once played the gods as computers in an odd (and utterly unsuccessful) RQ / Ringworld crossover - mistress Uz as Protectors etc etc

I woulda paid to be a fly on that wall...

[Akhôrahil]

Kyger Litor is your friend, Citizen. Trust Kyger Litor.

(Of course, you are secretly a Lunar Mutant Traitor.)

Edited August 11, 2022 by Akhôrahil

[Squaredeal Sten]

On 8/10/2022 at 4:46 PM, svensson said:

....he must be sensitive to the needs of his cult and the wishes/desires/requests of his worshipers all the way down to the 16 year-old newly initiated Orlkarth Oskarsson who is praying fervently to Orlanth that Ernaldissa Vandanding the next stead over 'notices him'.

Orlkarth may just be reminded of legend, Orlanth's wooing of Ernalda and give her a gift.  Not all the gods' benefits to worshippers need to be rune magic.   Being  a better Orlanthi may be its own reward.   Initiates of any cult should be oriented that way.

[svensson]

26 minutes ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

Orlkarth may just be reminded of legend, Orlanth's wooing of Ernalda and give her a gift.  Not all the gods' benefits to worshippers need to be rune magic.   Being  a better Orlanthi may be its own reward.   Initiates of any cult should be oriented that way.

Oh absolutely! I'm just saying that Orlkarth is praying just a fervently to Orlanth about Ernaldissa as any Divine Intervention request ever made. You remember how you were at 16! EVERYTHING mattered as if your life depended on it, ESPECIALLY anything to do with girls....