Trade/Communication Rune?

[metcalph]

2 hours ago, Mark Mohrfield said:

I’m cringing again. I can understand the leaving out the others, as they are just minor modifications of other Runes, but Law and Communication seem pretty important. Does anyone know why they were dropped.

Law is sorcery.  If I were to hazard a guess, its magic is only understandable through runic knowledges rather than inspirations and worship of the Gods.  Lhankor Mhy knows the Law Rune through Sorcery.  The techniques of Command, Combine etc. are derived from the Law Rune.

[JRE]

I do not worry too much. RQG is an imperfect simulation, and limited in space and scope. Complaining about the lack of the Law rune is like complaining about the incomplete sorcery rules. I am sure we will get both, probably at the same time. The question is how long it will take.

Meanwhile I use Trade as your choice (that cannot be changed after character creation) of Harmony and Movement (Harmony with the central stroke moved sideways), and allow professional traders to use it as inspiration in trade related matters. Having a character who follows Issaries and Lhankhor Mhy means some difficulties around Stasis and Movement, so the main runic associations are Truth, Harmony (Trade) and as a concession to munchkinism Fire. We have not really given any thought to Law, despite being a sorcerer, as we see that as definitory of Western Monotheism, so I expect it will return once we get rules for it. Meanwhile all the nice Western illustrations are still valid, as are those Trade runes in my Glorantha.

[French Desperate WindChild]

16 hours ago, Mark Mohrfield said:

I’m cringing again. I can understand the leaving out the others, as they are just minor modifications of other Runes, but Law and Communication seem pretty important. Does anyone know why they were dropped.

If as it is in rqg, the Runes are those which drive / lead glorantha organization (the other being only "symbols" to describe notions), Law does not, in my opinion, make any sense as a Rune. Law is all the Runes, or the Runes are the Law of universe.

Chaos as a"power" (not power as the power runes of sorcery, just power as a Rune) is a little bit different, as it is anti-Law. So we need it as mechanics to say this one is partially chaotic, this one not.

in another view communication is, still in my opinion, a lot of different things..; you may communicate with respect

you may communicate with your strength, to show who is the boss , or with violence to obtain what the Other owns and doesn't want to give you (sometimes ... )

so what could add communication trade as power ? for me, nothing =  +  respect the other and "fair" transfer information (communication) and goods (trade)

 

PS that doesn't mean the "glyph" -law or trade-  does not make sense or does not symbolize a god to gloranthan, or even gods, just that is not a "Power" ruling a part of the word

Edited December 2, 2022 by French Desperate WindChild

[mfbrandi]

37 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

so what could add communication trade as power ? for me, nothing =  + 

Or equivalently, - = , which suggests + = and isn’t that more thought provoking? Harmony is broken exchange.

How does one say which rune is the more fundamental? Perhaps one cannot.

[David Scott]

17 hours ago, Mark Mohrfield said:

Does anyone know why they were dropped.

They aren't needed in the Core Rules. The Issaries Rune will be in the upcoming cults book: 

Quote

The Runes of Issaries are Movement and Harmony. Together these are often expressed as “Issaries” or “Communication,” a Rune unknown or unused except in trade functions. Other than Issaries, few spirits have it, save those who took or otherwise obtained it from him.

Most core Runes (25) are in the Runes section of the Core Rules, the remaining 6 are in the cults book. 

[mfbrandi]

10 minutes ago, David Scott said:

The Issaries Rune will be in the upcoming cults book: 

Quote

The Runes of Issaries are Movement and Harmony. Together these are often expressed as “Issaries” or “Communication,” a Rune unknown or unused except in trade functions. Other than Issaries, few spirits have it, save those who took or otherwise obtained it from him.

For comparison, the Cults of Prax text:

Quote

The Runes of Issaries are Mobility, Harmony, and “Issaries,” a Rune unknown or unused except in trade functions. Other than Issaries few spirits have it, save those who took it from him.

If the Issaries rune, , is just shorthand for + , why would anyone need to acquire the rune (assuming they had the other two)?

Banish the thought of sloppy writing or thinking from your minds — consider your wrists to have been slapped if you found it there — and ask yourself what this says about not merely combining two runes, but expressing them in a third. Is there some strong synergy, something strongly emergent, something not captured by the idea of a single glyph for two runes? After all, harmonious movement would seem to apply to things that don’t involve exchange in any obvious way: dance, gymnastics, and athletics, perhaps. Is there more than one way to express two runes in a third?

Whatever the game mechanics and the text of the Cults Book (about which I have no opinion), it might be a shame if — which I like to think of as the ‘other minds’ or ‘non-solipsism’ rune — were to be thought of as adding nothing more to Glorantha than what is given by and .

[scott-martin]

2 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

why would anyone need to acquire the rune (assuming they had the other two)?

The flip answer is that even a fake cosmic monopoly can be useful. The standard runes have nominal "owners" but access is still relatively open to any cult that manages to cultivate a relationship. Trade is our intellectual property. We can rent it to people we like or withdraw the rights. And to the extent to which people can be convinced that Trade is a fundamental building block of the cosmos, we get an implicit seat on the big table alongside the primary Powers and Elements. What does it do that Harmony and Movement don't? Not much . . . but the act of bundling them together is itself the value add, the novelty we can sell people who are already invested in Harmony and/or Movement in exchange for something a little more tangible like initiation fees or access to a joint wyter. Maybe it's a shell game in terms of game mechanical impacts. All zero-sum trades really are.

So if you like Trade, keep it on the catalog of runes available and see who buys in. It doesn't have to do anything special. Charge them double what a normal Power would cost because they're getting two linked Powers in a single transaction. It's exotic. Rare. Prestigious. Desirable. It's a thing even the most destitute merchant can always sell at a reasonable markup because we made it up: inventory is inexhaustible and input costs are as low as it gets. Who wants one? Who will buy?

The longer answer is that the deprecation of Trade as a separate rune in the late early hero wars period is clearly a plot signal that something is going on within the trade god ecosystem. A decade ago the people running the show worked pretty hard to make the separate rune happen, for reasons that might be only vaguely hinted at in the game materials we have. Merchants started displaying this sign and educating strangers on what it meant . . . maybe in conjunction with Harmony In Motion, maybe replacing old signs that had both runes together. 

And then around 1625 they stop. The magic is more or less the same. Only the iconography shifts. Iconography carries politics, aspiration, more than a whiff of the intangible. The relatively brief fad for Trade reveals a kind of mysterious process going on in the dream life of money, even an uncanny spectral experience. "Animal spirits." And then it resolves . . . but not all at once. Some signs keep Trade longer. Some argue more passionately than ever that this is the one true rune of the god. Others can't paint over it fast enough. Every merchant is different. Every sign is overdetermined: there are external political and economic forces to weigh, grudges of dogma, pure inspiration weighing in on the particularities of preference. 

That inspiration tells you where the story goes in your game. Maybe the old traders simply laugh it off as something that happened, a shaggy dog story, that time we sold people a logo that was the brand. The god is the god of tattoo parlors after all. Maybe the trade cult is preparing for one kind of evolution or another. Trade may have only been the prototype for something else, a new and better synthetic rune that builds on what we learned that time. Something more dangerous, more useful, more real or some combination of the three. Or the trade cult itself may be sublimating into a different kind of something else, separating back into its constituent powers after the transaction that brought us together concludes. We might be spinning something out. We might be consolidating something else.

And if we're doing it, I doubt we're alone among the great cults of Glorantha. It's the end times. Everybody needs to stop shuffling the cards and start playing. In ten years, for example, some of us might abandon the sentimental relationship with the Air and go back to where we came from before that . . . Equal Exchange returns to the larger library of sorcerous and quasi-sorcerous techniques, Malkion welcomes the prodigal home. Or all that we know is eclipsed by the moon. Or whatever. Others may find new affinities with the Air and decoupling Trade liberates resources to pursue Change in the absence of Harmony. Everything solid might melt into Air. They'll need Changers for that and the father of god is the change god. 

Edited December 2, 2022 by scott-martin
gross margins; "i made it all up and it came true anyway"

[French Desperate WindChild]

3 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

After all, harmonious movement would seem to apply to things that don’t involve exchange in any obvious way: dance, gymnastics, and athletics, perhaps. Is there more than one way to express two runes in a third?

of course it is, but maybe gymnastic/danse has the "middle" bar in the bottom, athletic may be the third rotated  or don't know.

the point you raise is very interesting :

3 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

something strongly emergent, something not captured by the idea of a single glyph for two runes

that's the question ! 

What does trade better than harmony and change ? What does gymnastique better than harmony and movement ?

and if you find (I don't, but there is no reason I'm right 🙂 ) if this "better" thing, not covered better by an other rune ?

 

note that I consider any rune (harmony...) as a lot of things, and it is not because one god (for example a dance god) has harmony that means his followers will be good in trade. A god may know parts of the power of a rune, and this part could be called "rune spell". 

So yes maybe you are "good" in a rune, but, if you don't know the secret power of creating and protecting a peaceful market (if you consider god as machine/resource, change the word if you consider gods as willing npc), you will not be able to organize this market

and in another hand if you are able to ease someone with your harmonic danse, that could be because you understand the "other", so maybe, once you will learn the secret of trade, you will be good at it too !

 

 

 

Edited December 2, 2022 by French Desperate WindChild
has not as....

[Eff]

 is a combination of  and . It's, itself, an act of magic at its root, because "harmony" and "motion" seem to be somewhat at odds, and when we say that "motion" is "freedom", then an apparent paradox asserts itself- how can harmony exist with freedom? Don't they constrain one another? 

 is the answer. Communication, Trade, Equal Exchange. By this magic, you can make the two compatible. The free movement of goods and jogging up and down of prices produces a beautiful harmonious world. Of course, I know a lot of people personally who might call that . Harst Sparegrain? Isn't he a bit of a... speculator on grain? 

So the disappearance of the balanced scales suggests, perhaps, a kind of suspension of interconvertibility. Battening down the hatches against a potential bank run. Maybe the currency reserves are running a little dry, or there's a slight problem of overleverage. Argan Argar has divested himself. Lokarnos probably will go next. Etyries is in it for the long haul, of course. Issaries is. Maybe there'll be a "Solaran put", or we'll discover the other side of Issaries deep in  country, the one who's still got the explicit financial wizardry and knows that the big triangle was really the central bank. 

[scott-martin]

24 minutes ago, Eff said:

 

Rumor has it 2.0 will bring that one back as something a little more woke or at least responsive. I've seen prototypes they're shopping around Mother Market, what do you think of the redesign

[Bill the barbarian]

14 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Rumor has it 2.0 will bring that one back as something a little more woke or at least responsive.

Woke, my big fat hairy butt! I'm going back to sleep!

[Eff]

14 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Rumor has it 2.0 will bring that one back as something a little more woke or at least responsive. I've seen prototypes they're shopping around Mother Market, what do you think of the redesign

Annuit huic coepto. Annuat coeptis! 

[jajagappa]

2 hours ago, Eff said:

It's, itself, an act of magic at its root, because "harmony" and "motion" seem to be somewhat at odds

"No Trade without Wheels!"  So say the Lokarnos wagon-drivers who are of course the foundation to the whole venture - the movement from Point A to Point B.  It's then up to Issaries and/or Etyries to achieve the balance and the bargain at Point C above.  Thus, by Law, we prove that Trade is merely the combination of Movement with Harmony achieved. 

[Joerg]

23 hours ago, Mark Mohrfield said:

I’m cringing again. I can understand the leaving out the others, as they are just minor modifications of other Runes, but Law and Communication seem pretty important. Does anyone know why they were dropped.

Quite explicitely I do not know, but all of this reduction is a reaction to the implementation of runes in RQG, and affects only that product line. Which unfortunately turns out to be the only Glorantha product line with some support, including the Jonstown Compendium.

RQG already has inherited too many skills from its predecessors. Adding a few more non-core runes as requirements for fairly popular cults adds to this skill inflation - every skill you add to the game makes your characters more incompetent, and while RQG allows players to create one-dimensional combat or magic monsters, it is harder to create equally competent characters in other fields. Characters wanting to do something with lores and similar checkbox-less skills need a lot of GM fiat to make that happen, resulting in mediocre success rates. This is a kowtow rather than a nod to RQ2, and an almost grudging acknowledgement of RQ3 which was similarly bloated (in hindsight, back then that bloat was a selling feature vs. class and THACO).

I suppose a majority of the Glorantha community is first and foremost interested in a game setting, which makes game artifacts invading the lore of the world not an issue for that purpose. Outside of that purpose, I don't see why game design considerations of a single should affect the lore of a multi-platform setting. The current canon is a RQG canon. YGWV if RQG is not your (only) approach to the setting.

RQG is what makes sellling Glorantha commercially viable. Without a well-selling game system, neither fan products nor niche alternatives like 13G or (a more and more hypothetical) Questworlds Glorantha or board games won't see the light of day.

[mfbrandi]

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

The current canon is a RQG canon. YGWV if RQG is not your (only) approach to the setting.

I bet the heavy duty lore nerds here could play any Gloranthan scenario as a matrix game (i.e. here’s why it happens; here’s why it doesn’t; assign a probability on the fly; roll). They would get to wear their subject matter expert hats and everything.

Boring aside:

Spoiler

Integrating lore and ruleset is sometimes seen as a selling point, but IMHO it really isn’t if you have players with strong opinions about the setting, as when they are dealing with a Who Moved My Cheese Glorantha moment, they have to grapple with crunch and lore — it makes varying their Glorantha harder work.

For the avoidance of doubt, I am not telling Chaosium to do anything differently — or the same, come to that. I am happy to take what I want and leave the rest. No one wants games designed by focus group, do they?

Right, that is quite enough of that. Let’s get back to the irreducible .

[hipsterinspace]

I think the “Issaries” rune only makes the sense as “communication” if it is the iconographic shorthand for the Issaries cult’s greatest contribution in the middle world: tradetalk, the lingua franca that almost all commerce is facilitated through. The juncture of harmony and mobility is the signifier by which you can peacefully and constructively communicate with someone no matter where or how far you travel.

As for law, I think it makes sense as something generally alien to mortal comprehension as its owner and chief representative is the inaccessible and non-anthropomorphized creator of the material world, the invisible god. It seems like to “possess” law would be to attain a state of consciousness that is able to reconcile the phenomenal consciousness shared by all sentient mortals with an otherwise unknowable noumenal (pure runic) consciousness that creates enough distance and abstraction for the sorcerous manipulation of the former.

[JonL]

I much prefer it as a distinct rune, as it opens possibilities like a smuggler who is strong in Trade & Disorder, or a Lord Treasurer with Trade & Stasis, which the oppositional nature of power runes would otherwise close. Trade/Communication as a distinct lever in sorcery is nice too - Open Seas as "Combine Water with Trade" is on-point, and you can bet the Cult of Silence loves to Dismiss Communication despite being pro-Harmony. 

In-fiction, I'll stick with how it's presented in the Guide. Issaries, Etyries, Dormal, and Argan Argar all have it listed (Lokarnos is omitted from the pantheon roster, despite being present in the Pelorian culture section, oddly), and it's shown on some of the coin illustrations, including the Seshelan one.

Edited December 5, 2022 by JonL

[AlHazred]

To throw an additional wrinkle into the mix, I always* interpreted the "Issaries" rune as "Equal Exchange" -- the exchange of goods or services with an attempt at equity between the participants. The similar "Lanbril" rune from HQ2 is "Unequal Exchange" -- taking from another without equitable return. These interpretations make the Trade/Theft runes something of a pair of minor Power runes.

* From RQ2, except we didn't have any "official" Theft rune at the time; that wouldn't come until HQ.

Edited December 5, 2022 by AlHazred