Do Lunars Need to Make CoC style SAN Checks?

[EricW]

Just how dangerous is life as a Lunar? Should Lunars have a Call of Cthulhu style SAN stat? Are magical classes or illuminates more or less susceptible to the insanity of life under a goddess whose magic creates madness? Is just learning Lunar mysteries enough to drive someone mad?

[g33k]

7 minutes ago, EricW said:

Just how dangerous is life as a Lunar?

Unless you live on a warring border (or are in the way when Sheng Seleris leads his hordes in to attack) it's safer than Sartar.

8 minutes ago, EricW said:

... Should Lunars have a Call of Cthulhu style SAN stat? ...

Not by default, no.

8 minutes ago, EricW said:

... Are magical classes or illuminates more or less susceptible to the insanity of life under a goddess whose magic creates madness? ...

Illuminates, I think, are less susceptible to madness.

9 minutes ago, EricW said:

... Is just learning Lunar mysteries enough to drive someone mad?

... Maybe some of them?
In particular, I suspect anyone dealing with the Bat very much is in SAN-risking territory.

There's likely some other, non-public SAN-risks, too.
I'm sure @Nick Brooke will be along to tell us it's not so ... that's how you know it is so!

 

[Joerg]

At the First Battle of Chaos, the followers of Teelo Estara perceived their re-appearing goddess riding a giant hummingbird instead of the Crimson Bat. (A fact that makes me somehow puzzled about the bat imagery in their commemorative coins.)

Given the Lunar association with insanity, many Lunars might think that sanity is overrated.

[Akhôrahil]

5 hours ago, Joerg said:

Given the Lunar association with insanity, many Lunars might think that sanity is overrated.

“Only the insane have strength enough to prosper. Only those who prosper may truly judge what is sane.”

[mfbrandi]

6 hours ago, Joerg said:

riding a giant hummingbird instead of the Crimson Bat. (A fact that makes me somehow puzzled about the bat imagery in their commemorative coins.)

If you had asked them what was depicted on the coin, what would they have said? (And perhaps the bird–bat coin image is a Gloranthan duck–rabbit.)

The giant hummingbird has a red breast and a voracious appetite — hovering eats calories/souls at a frightening rate — and like the Lunar spud, it lives in the Andes. Andean entities are notoriously unstable in Glorantha: if it morphed into another pollinator, the hummingbird was lucky it didn’t wink out of existence altogether.° Or perhaps there are potatoes and a giant hummingbird, but those crazy non-Lunars cannot perceive them.°° Hence the use of the humble tuber by the 7M missionaries: the mark who can taste the potato bread can taste their own salvation, the body of the Goddess.°°°

—————————————————————————————————————————
° “Morokanth exist,” you say. Yes, but the woolly tapir — exiled from its mountain home — is caught between the designations of “person” and “beast,” its status ever contested: “You are not, or at least you ought not … look, you are just wrong, alright!”

°° Possibly also the origin of the Gloranthans’ idea that something “eaten by Chaos” disappears from reality. Like Vance’s Ampridatvir or Mieville’s interwoven cities, things are there but denied. The hidden side of the Moon.

°°° And perhaps for the believing tick, the blood of the “Bat” turns to nectar as it drinks.

[Tatterdemalion Fox]

13 hours ago, Joerg said:

At the First Battle of Chaos, the followers of Teelo Estara perceived their re-appearing goddess riding a giant hummingbird instead of the Crimson Bat. (A fact that makes me somehow puzzled about the bat imagery in their commemorative coins.)

Whoever said it was giant? Perhaps the Goddess is just very good at balancing (yet another Lunar miracle!).

(I checked Lives, and I’d forgotten the hummingbird souls and the butterfly spirits, but the size of the hummingbird is never specified.)

[Joerg]

43 minutes ago, Tatterdemalion Fox said:

Whoever said it was giant? Perhaps the Goddess is just very good at balancing (yet another Lunar miracle!).

(I checked Lives, and I’d forgotten the hummingbird souls and the butterfly spirits, but the size of the hummingbird is never specified.)

You are of course right, Balance is one expression of the Lunar power.

A giant hummingbird wouldn't necessarily be much longer than the Goddess herself, but it was visible from all over the battle field, so it should have had at least a certain size.

[Darius West]

On 12/18/2023 at 3:25 PM, g33k said:

Illuminates, I think, are less susceptible to madness.

Well, remember that Illuminates seem to have no problem with accepting contradictions.  War is Peace.  Freedom is Slavery.  Wealth is Poverty.  All this is mirrored in the Lunar state, and all you need to do is love Moonson and do as you are told.  So arguably they cannot go insane, as that moonboat has sailed.

[svensson]

Well, that question brings up a greater one:

Should ALL RQ PCs have to make SAN checks when confronted by blatant Chaos?

On the one hand, 'yes'... Chaos is the Primordial Evil, it is wrongness in material form and is RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU!

On the other hand, 'no'... Life in Glorantha is directly tied to the land... every single human being has seen a living animal get rendered down to its edible parts, every human has seen, smelled, and experienced Death in at least one of its myriad forms. To put it bluntly, after you watch a pig go from being fed last night to being rendered into hams and blood sausage tonight, Gloranthans have a higher tolerance for *ick* than most modern people.

[g33k]

5 minutes ago, svensson said:

Well, that question brings up a greater one:

Should ALL RQ PCs have to make SAN checks when confronted by blatant Chaos?

On the one hand, 'yes'... Chaos is the Primordial Evil, it is wrongness in material form and is RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU!

On the other hand, 'no'... Life in Glorantha is directly tied to the land... every single human being has seen a living animal get rendered down to its edible parts, every human has seen, smelled, and experienced Death in at least one of its myriad forms. To put it bluntly, after you watch a pig go from being fed last night to being rendered into hams and blood sausage tonight, Gloranthans have a higher tolerance for *ick* than most modern people.

Also, a great many Gloranthans already know of Chaos.
It's a central feature of their myth-cycles, a common adventuring-foe, a common heroquest-obstacle & foe, etc.

Many experience Chaos directly, re-living IFWW during an Initiation.

Not like those poor modern fans of HPL, who think they have Science! to protect them, to answer all their questions; who grew up the metaphysical center of the universe, and pinnacle of Creation.  Chaos will quickly break them, but Gloranthans are made of sterner stuff!

[svensson]

6 minutes ago, g33k said:

Also, a great many Gloranthans already know of Chaos.
It's a central feature of their myth-cycles, a common adventuring-foe, a common heroquest-obstacle & foe, etc.

Many experience Chaos directly, re-living IFWW during an Initiation.

Not like those poor modern fans of HPL, who think they have Science! to protect them, to answer all their questions; who grew up the metaphysical center of the universe, and pinnacle of Creation.  Chaos will quickly break them, but Gloranthans are made of sterner stuff!

I submit that there's a lot of preparation that goes into Initiation, including instruction on Chaos, and that Initiation isn't all that deadly. It is a rite to adulthood and meant to be challenging for a child... but it is also specifically designed to change a child's thinking into that of an adult. While not everyone can pass it, it still only weeds out a small percentage... else where are your adults coming from?

I think Initiation's interaction with Chaos isn't quite as terrifying as reliving IFWW but more on the nature of confirming your cult's teachings on Chaos. Chaos exposure also likely depends on cult... almost nothing in Donadar all the way up to nearly full exposure in Storm Bull/Urox.

[Darius West]

On the other hand, the Lunars have their whole "drive you crazy" line of magic like Lunes and Mindblast.  I have heard that they regard having these effects cast on them as a great aid to developing their Illumination, and only barbarians consider them attack spells.  

[Kettlehelm]

A passion to SAN conversion would open a whole new set of scenarios to reuse.
But otherwise you could just go POW x 5 or copy from Stormbringer 1E when they assigned SAN scores to the monsters, elementals and demons there and use that as a guide.

[mfbrandi]

On 12/18/2023 at 4:13 AM, EricW said:

Should Lunars have a … SAN stat?
Are … illuminates more or less susceptible to the insanity of life …?
Is just learning Lunar mysteries enough to drive someone mad?

If one must have numbers — I am skeptical, but I present a bit of Xmas silliness, for the fun of it — approach things obliquely by giving everyone an opposed Cosmos–Chaos pair, summing to 100% for non-illuminati. Illuminates get a single number in the 0–100% range to represent both, because =. Opinions differ as to where sanity lies, and schools of illumination squabble about which is the right number to aim for and what it all means — e.g. some claim that =0%= indicates a desirable state of full detachment, others that =50%= indicates the same thing — but it is all Greek to the unenlightened. 😉

Edited December 23, 2023 by mfbrandi

[Squaredeal Sten]

As I understand CoC, achieving 100% insanity. disables the character.  But the Gloranthan stuff we have been shown doesn't work that way: The high ranking Lunars are functional despite uncounted exposures to Chaos.  Indeed they accumulate more magic (and more ruthlessness), with no sign of being disabled.  Perhaps Illumination protects them from being disabled and only the non illuminates are at risk.  

But Glorantha seems to indicate a different mechanic associated with exposure to Chaos.  The Storm Bulls seek it out and get more fanatical against it, only getting more skilled at fighting it.

Edited December 24, 2023 by Squaredeal Sten
I really do know how to spell "despite"

[mfbrandi]

1 hour ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

100% insanity … disables the character.  But … high ranking Lunars are functional despite uncounted exposures to Chaos.

I suppose disabling symptoms can be handled with passions — “Fear: Spiders (99%)” or whatever.

Those who have “gone mad” are not necessarily catatonic. A “mad” cultist may be very good at running mass rituals to summon Monstrosities From Beyond™. I think of “sanity” as a measure of PCness: when it hits zero, you are a non-player character, but not necessarily an ineffective NPC.

But perhaps having mechanics for that is best left to Cthulhu-adjacent games where the point is to send one’s character gibbering over the edge. For example, this from Trophy Dark:

• When … all 6 Ruin boxes are marked you lose yourself to the wilds that have been growing inside you. You choose whether you become a monster in service to the forces of nature (and the whims of the GM), or whether you simply die. — TD, p. 6

There is an old trope — I can’t remember where it started; it was used in Zot! for Dekko (IIRC) but surely wasn’t new then — of what is thought of as apotheosis by the person undergoing it looking a lot like catatonia to everyone else. “The mystery of Argrath: how one man became a god.”

[SDLeary]

10 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

I suppose disabling symptoms can be handled with passions — “Fear: Spiders (99%)” or whatever.

As runes are somewhat indicative of personality/behavior, perhaps circumstantial malus' on rune rolls? Not really sure how this could be pulled off though (it would be easier with Pendragon).

10 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Those who have “gone mad” are not necessarily catatonic. A “mad” cultist may be very good at running mass rituals to summon Monstrosities From Beyond™. I think of “sanity” as a measure of PCness: when it hits zero, you are a non-player character, but not necessarily an ineffective NPC.

This

SDLeary

[Squaredeal Sten]

10 hours ago, SDLeary said:

As runes are somewhat indicative of personality/behavior, perhaps circumstantial malus' on rune rolls? Not really sure how this could be pulled off though (it would be easier with Pendragon).

This

SDLeary

Mere exposure to and observstion of Chaos would not, but since the original question was about Lunars, then yes I would expect their Chaos and Moon rune alignments to increase as they become better Lunars. 

When it/ they go(es) beyond 90% the GM should be requiring rolls against it and the Adventurer would be less and less under the Player's control.  This is the same mechanic as for other alignments. It's in the RQiG book.

Whether the GM interprets that as insanity is an individual choice.  I suppose a little gibbering and a lot of obsession would help some stories.  Catatonia not so much, unless the purpose  is to remove an over powered character from play. 

Perhaps make a  random roll to choose somethig from  the psychological association's  diagnostic manual?  https://www.yourbookstop.com/product/diagnostic-and-statistical-manual-of-mental-disorders-text-revision-dsm-5-tr-5th-edition-dsm-5-tr/?gclid=CjwKCAiAyp-sBhBSEiwAWWzTns3k5ck_n_A6cKvd5TzaBzcxdxkljrqMB2rcMI_uvrz5ZWbTRg-RHRoCizoQAvD_BwE

But at $50 for a used copy.... I would rather spend my money on Chaosium's books.  Your budget may vary.

 

 

Edited December 24, 2023 by Squaredeal Sten
Spelling / typing

[Akhôrahil]

CoC SAN is not merely mental stress and poor mental health - it’s about having your illusions shattered and understanding the true, awful nature of the universe. This kind of thing doesn’t automatically seem like it would apply to Glorantha - the closest thing to it is Illumination.

(That said, rules for mental stress have become very common in modern/neotrad RPGs, and fill a strong purpose there. CoC SAN might not be the best rules engine for it, though.)

Edited December 24, 2023 by Akhôrahil

[Ian Absentia]

Not the Lunar Empire proper, much less the empire as a whole, and not even specifically "chaos", but as of 1982 (Wyrm's Footnotes No.14) someone was going this direction.

We've come a long way in defining Chaos, though.

On 12/23/2023 at 9:49 AM, mfbrandi said:

There is an old trope — I can’t remember where it started; it was used in Zot! for Dekko (IIRC)...

Thank you for simply mentioning Zot!  More people need to do so!  You earn a special Christmas Heart pairing today.  💚❤️

!i!

[AlHazred]

CoC Sanity is specifically based on Lovecraft's impression of what sanity looked like. Different authors in the Cthuhlu Mythos have different interpretations of what that looks like; there's a round-robin story where Lovecraft wrote one chapter, at the end of which the protagonist is confronted with alien horrors and freezes in fear, and then Robert E. Howard wrote the very next chapter, where the protagonist conquers his momentary fear and reaves the alien horrors limb from limb in an orgy of violence. All this to say, it's interesting to think of what "sanity" means in Glorantha. The Lunars definitely have a concept of "sanity" since they have a lot of theology about madness, but it's questionable whether the Praxians do or not. Maybe a question for Mystics?

[soltakss]

21 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

We've come a long way in defining Chaos, though.

It didn't happen, though. Neither Dorastor Land of Doom nor Lords of Terror had Sanity rules for RuneQuest. Most of Dorastor is so terrifying that it is a case of Oh, look, it's just another monst-aaagh!"

[soltakss]

By the way, when I get around to writing up the Mad Sultan for Dorastor the writeup will contain various stages of madness, for the Mad Sultan's followers go to the First Battle of Chaos as part of their initiation and have the immense privilege of getting to see the Red Goddess, Beloved be her Name, emerging from the God World atop the Crimson Bat, Her holiest steed, and become insane as a result. It also covers the descendants of the Clown Army, who took the Mad Sultanate into Dorastor. Insane Eurmali Clowns, what's not to love?

[Ian Absentia]

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

It didn't happen, though.

I'll have to check again, but it's probably next to another teaser for the forthcoming HeroQuest rules.  And as I wrote above, we've come a long way when it comes to Chaos (and heroquesting), so it may very well be for the best. 

Once you label me, you negate me.

!i!