Glowspot vs Glowline

[Mark Mohrfield]

I gather that the Glowspot created by the Crimson Bat allows Lunar Magicians to cast magic as though the Red Moon were in it’s Full Phase, while the Glowline only allows them to cast magic as though it were in it’s Half Phase? I’m supposing here that the comment in the RuneQuest Bestiary “The Bat exerts a force which acts in all ways as the Lunar Glowline for Lunar magicians. All Lunar magicians within the Glowspot of the Bat act as if the Red Moon is Full” is a reflection of it’s description from RQ2/3.

Edited April 25 by Mark Mohrfield

[jajagappa]

3 minutes ago, Mark Mohrfield said:

I gather that the Glowspot created by the Crimson Bat allows Lunar Magicians to cast magic as though the Red Moon were in it’s Full Phase

Correct.

3 minutes ago, Mark Mohrfield said:

Glowline only allows them to cast magic as though it were in it’s Half Phase?

Correct.

Basically, the Glowspot is much more intense and focused.

[Eff]

9 minutes ago, Mark Mohrfield said:

I gather that the Glowspot created by the Crimson Bat allows Lunar Magicians to cast magic as though the Red Moon were in it’s Full Phase, while the Glowline only allows them to cast magic as though it were in it’s Half Phase? I’m supposing here that the comment in the RuneQuest Bestiary “The Bat exerts a force which acts in all ways as the Lunar Glowline for Lunar magicians. All Lunar magicians within the Glowspot of the Bat act as if the Red Moon is Full” is a reflect of it’s description from RQ2/3.

It's actually all the way from White Bear and Red Moon, where "cyclical magicians" (including most of the Lunar Field School) were at full power (12) within the Glowline and within two hexes of the Bat. They were at 7 power on Empty Half and 9 power on Full Half days. The Glowline's power boost wasn't a feature of the Cults of Prax Seven Mothers cult, which instead had the following Lunar cycle effects on Rune levels:

Dark/Dying: only 1-pt Rune spells

Crescents: only 2-pt Rune spells

Half Moons: only 3-pt Rune spells

Full Moon: all Rune spells available, all Rune spells last 30 minutes where they would normally last 15. 

(These rules don't seem to affect stacking, notably.)

RQ3's Gods of Glorantha has two separate charts for the two Lunar cults it details- Red Goddess and Seven Mothers. The Red Goddess cult's chart concerns Lunar Magic, the Seven Mothers cult's chart is distinct from the Cults of Prax one in considering stacking, but in both of them, the Glowline means the Moon is always full and you use the line for Full Moon. 

The first game which altered this was Hero Wars, which has a Lunar cycle chart which only affects affinities of Lunar deities if you read the text about the cycle in Chapter 10, but which affects all affinities, spirits, grimoires, blessings, and talents from every detailed Lunar Otherworld entity in that book except Taraltara mysticism. This chart affects target numbers by multiplying them by 0.3 on Dark/Dying days, 0.5 on Crescent days, 1.0 on Half days, and 1.5 on Full days, thereby making magic more difficult but not specifically restricting the kinds that may be performed. The Glowline in this rendition makes everything neutral like a Half Moon day, except for characters who know the Secret of a Lunar religion, for whom it is always a Full Moon when within the Glowline. 

This does not change for Heroquest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. Heroquest 2 proper doesn't mention it, even in its section on the Lunar pantheon, but Pavis: Gateway to Adventure, has a chart which revolves around the "stretch" that Heroquest 2 formalized, which applies to "Lunar glamours" only. Neither mention the Glowline. 

Heroquest Glorantha does, but simply repeats the Pavis: Gateway to Adventure text and adds that the Moon is always at Half within the Glowline for everyone. 

Runequest: Roleplaying in Glorantha thus takes the RQ3 Seven Mothers chart and combines it with the Heroquest Glorantha text on the Glowline and produces this situation where the Glowspot is greater in effect than the Glowline, because RQ:RiG is the first game since RQ3 to have rules for the Crimson Bat's Glowspot published. At no point previously in the publication of Gloranthan games was this ever the case, and the specific form and limitations of the Lunar Cycle generally varied significantly from game to game and within the same game.

Or to sum this all up, this is an invention of RQ:RiG. 

[jajagappa]

1 hour ago, Eff said:

At no point previously in the publication of Gloranthan games was this ever the case, and the specific form and limitations of the Lunar Cycle generally varied significantly from game to game and within the same game.

Griffin Mountain p.9 described the original Glowline effect: "Once one passes into the Glowline region, the moon always appears to be in its full phase, and Lunar magics always work at full strength."

1 hour ago, Eff said:

Or to sum this all up, this is an invention of RQ:RiG.

Not an invention, but a recasting to a standard power level vs. the full power of the Bat's Glowspot.

[EricW]

I wonder if there is room in future to jack this up further, like for every thousand people the bat eats within the last 24 hours, there is a probability the glowspot will empower lunar magic beyond normal maximum? So Lunars feeding chaos can gain access to devastating powers to win battles, but it emphasises the dichotomy between use of the overtly chaotic bat to crush resistance, and Lunars presenting themselves as a peaceful alternative to the barbarian rabble. 

Edited April 26 by EricW

[scott-martin]

"Inside the Line was Permanent Full and will be Permanent Full but is not Permanent Full right now. Outside the Line was and will be and is "cyclical" right now. Meditate on this. Are you, as Saint Heidi asks, 'in' or are you 'out,' right now?" 
- Tight Indigo Trousers

---[ ]---

All zen noodle soup aside (the udon is infinite), I think historical accounts of the Line supporting a permanent full moon operating environment reflect a combination of assumptions and facts about life in the empire in the 1616-25 era. Outsiders who had only encountered the extreme wax-and-wane tactics of lunar magicians abroad (tied to the moon cycle) would have been impressed simply to see what this magic can do when you can count on any level of steady state. Enchantments can get refreshed in perpetuity and you can plan around the effects. You're not on any schedule. Of course you might have to give something up (Etyries transactions are fractional and derivative) in order to smooth the cycle and lock in a particular power level, but to those outsiders who were writing the books in 1616-25 (i.e. bedazzled beard types who rarely get to leave the house anyway) the mere feat of normalizing cyclical magic makes the Line look incredible. Even Permanent Half was so good up in the empire that a rumor got going that the Line supported peak red magic always on all the time . . . and nobody had the technical vocabulary to correct them, so the urban legend made it into print and stayed.

However. Even lunar adepts can confirm that the dragonrise blew the transmission network like magical disasters tend to do. It will take time to recharge. Meanwhile the best the grid can do for awhile is Permanent Half, which is not awful (see above) but not boom times either. We are told that Permanent Full will be available by the time the Hero Wars board games get underway. Trust the emperor and the red seers. They're working on it.

Now if you need something like Permanent Full right now, you can always burn precious moon rock or seek out a regenerating glow source like the bat. Couple of things here. First, elite members of the lunar establishment have chosen not to generate their own glow. They are happy to smooth their cycle inside the Line but also surrender to the phase table in barbarian territory. "Something's lost but something's gained in living every day." There might even be something corrosive in having all your magic available full strength all the time but I'm not going to slurp that noodle today. The bat squad, however, are full crazy. Whether the Spot causes that crazy or the crazy causes the Spot, again, not my job to explain. It is interesting, though, that at moments when the Line rolls back to Half or flickers out entirely it becomes useful to route the bat through imperial territory so people can get an extra day or two of Full before the tour needs to move on. IMHW glow technicians are about to become a big deal as necessity mothers invention.

Dumb Theory: there is also something people call "white glow" but it ain't white exactly.
 

[jajagappa]

10 hours ago, EricW said:

I wonder if there is room in future to jack this up further, like for every thousand people the bat eats within the last 24 hours, there is a probability the glowspot will empower lunar magic beyond normal maximum? So Lunars feeding chaos can gain access to devastating powers to win battles, but it emphasises the dichotomy between use of the overtly chaotic bat to crush resistance, and Lunars presenting themselves as a peaceful alternative to the barbarian rabble. 

What changes is the Range of the Glowspot. Noted in Glorantha Bestiary p.190: "At full ability, the Glowspot of the Bat extends for some 20 kilometers or so. At minimum ability, the Glowspot covers an area with a radius of approximately 4 kilometers." 

So you can charge up your whole army with the power of the Full Moon including the Lunar College of Magic sitting behind the lines vs only a few regiments.

[mfbrandi]

1 hour ago, scott-martin said:

“Something’s lost but something's gained in living every day.”

• It takes a heart like Norri’s these days
  When your moon gets weak

Don’t interrupt the moonflow.

Spoiler

• Out in the wind in crinolines
  Chasing the ghosts of Arkat, again
  Through stand-in boys and extra players
  Magnolias hopeful in her auburn hair
  She comes from a school of northern charm
  She likes to have things her way
  Any man in the world holding out his arm
  Would soon be made to pay

With apologies to Joni.

[David Scott]

Note that each of the five priests is also a glowspot. I can imagine one is often off with a Feeder (RL) arranging bat logistics and attending large rituals. Having a glowspot at a ritual must be a bonus.

[soltakss]

In my Glorantha, magicians within the Glowline operate at Full Moon because the Red Moon is always full there. It also makes Lunars really hard when within the Glow Line, which suits my games perfectly.

[Nick Brooke]

Crimson Bat worshippers are Chaos cultists, good citizens don't emulate them. They're all kinds of f**ked up.

[soltakss]

4 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

Crimson Bat worshippers are Chaos cultists, good citizens don't emulate them.

Are they?

In the olden days, there was a rule that Chaos Cultists couldn't direct the Crimson Bat, so it is a surprise to see them allowed to worship the Crimson Bat.

[Nick Brooke]

Check its Runes, Simon. I know you're from Dorastor, but even so...

[soltakss]

Just now, Nick Brooke said:

Check its Runes, Simon.

I would if I could, but I am still waiting for Her Glorious Appearance.

[metcalph]

2 minutes ago, soltakss said:

In the olden days, there was a rule that Chaos Cultists couldn't direct the Crimson Bat, so it is a surprise to see them allowed to worship the Crimson Bat.

They are chaotics by virtue of worshipping the Crimson Bat, a chaotic demon.  The "rule" was that cultists with a chaotic feature (which the rules then called chaotics coz Runic Affinities weren't a thing then) couldn't become rune levels (Cults of Terror p74).  That said, I dunno what the Lunar Way says about:

• Cultists who have acquired a chaotic feature *after* becoming a rune-level,
• Cultists who have had a Chaos Gift.
• Cultists who can conceal their features due to Illumination and then acquire a chaotic feature.

The simplest solution might be the the High Priest of the Bat sorts it out internally by having the errant cultist trip and fall into the Bat's maw.  

 

[soltakss]

1 minute ago, metcalph said:

The "rule" was that cultists with a chaotic feature (which the rules then called chaotics coz Runic Affinities weren't a thing then) couldn't become rune levels (Cults of Terror p74). 

Thanks,. I haven't read that for a long time.

[EricW]

Maybe the problem is having a chaos feature makes you less durable. Riding around on the back of a chaos monster probably exposes you to a little chaos, like a chance of picking up a chaos feature every so often, with usual cumulative risk of dying for each feature. 

[Nick Brooke]

5 hours ago, EricW said:

Maybe the problem is having a chaos feature makes you less durable.

No, it makes you potentially unreliable in the eyes of the Powers That Be. Remember, the Lunar Way in no way condones the worship of Chaos entities that follow the way of Gbaji and fall into moral depravity. Losing control of the Crimson Bat to a morally-reprehensible Chaos cultist is unthinkable, like putting Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper in command, or handing nuclear codes to a depraved populist with substance-abuse issues and an authority fetish. The system ought to prevent it.

[Jeff]

On 4/25/2024 at 6:17 PM, jajagappa said:

Griffin Mountain p.9 described the original Glowline effect: "Once one passes into the Glowline region, the moon always appears to be in its full phase, and Lunar magics always work at full strength."

Not an invention, but a recasting to a standard power level vs. the full power of the Bat's Glowspot.

Greg and I discussed the effect of the Glowline at length, so no not just an invention The issue is that having the Lunars ALWAYS having the Full Moon benefit for their RQ spells was more powerful than Greg wanted the effect to be in-game. So "Full Strength" meant working like a regular Rune spell rather than 50% better.

[jajagappa]

59 minutes ago, Jeff said:

The issue is that having the Lunars ALWAYS having the Full Moon benefit for their RQ spells was more powerful than Greg wanted the effect to be in-game.

Makes perfect sense, and seems to keep balance well in line.

[Akhôrahil]

12 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Makes perfect sense, and seems to keep balance well in line.

Although it’s interesting that Lunars only get to experience the full power of the full moon if they go outside the Glowline.

[Eff]

9 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Although it’s interesting that Lunars only get to experience the full power of the full moon if they go outside the Glowline.

There, of course, has never been a released Gloranthan game in which Lunar Rune magic was more powerful during the Full Moon, only increasing in duration if the spell has a duration without any additional effects on the spell. And in the games where Lunar magic was boosted in some fashion by 50% under the Full Moon, there was no Rune magic and that benefit only existed within the Glowline for dedicated Lunar magicians who pursued some deeper insight. Otherwise it was always at "normal". 

(Furthermore, increasing or decreasing a target number within those games doesn't alter the effect of an ability, but does affect its reliability, and doing the same to APs only increases its power via second-order effects. It's probably more accurate to say it increases the endurance of the ability as a median statement, if anything.) But it is, of course, strange. Much could be spun from that effect... but I go back to the table from White Bear and Red Moon and the description of the Major and Minor Class chits, where they learn the magic of "the different phases", which has never been represented in roleplaying, and I conclude that the Lunar Cycle is complicated and ripe for expansion and investigation through play.