Adamantium & Chaos

[Erol of Backford]

Does true stone or adamantium dissolve chaos? Would it not be like the void for chaos?

Would it dissolve gorp?

Has anyone used adamantium arrows or sling bullets in their campaigns? Would they act like salt on snails or something like that if they enter a gorp?

Would adamantium or true stone not stop a walktapus from regenerating?

Edited June 9 by Erol of Backford

[Snugz]

I'd think that it would not, as Chaos destroyed the Spike? Yet The Block made a mess of Wakboth so maybe it's a draw.

I had an adamant arrow in a game, which ignored any magic when shot, but had to be retrieved once fired or "bad things would happen". It became the sorceror-slayer for an assassin PC.

[mfbrandi]

8 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Would it dissolve gorp?

• WORLD (cosmos) || INTEGUMENT/MEMBRANE || GORP INTERIOR (chaos)

If you “dissolved” the interior of a gorp, could you tell the difference? If you dissolved its membrane, would you get a spreading puddle of corrosive chaos? Ugh!

The integument of a gorp is what separates the nice, cosy, ordered world from the roiling, acidic nastiness within—or without, depending on your cosmic perspective. Is it a part of the gorp/chaos or is it the world’s final line of defence against that chaos? (This is a callback to the idea of Wakboth as a scab over the void—in RQ3 Dorastor or Lords of Terror IIRC.)

[John Biles]

21 hours ago, Snugz said:

I'd think that it would not, as Chaos destroyed the Spike? Yet The Block made a mess of Wakboth so maybe it's a draw.

 

Wakboth is moral chaos and thus vulnerable to being squished.

Kajabor would eat the Block.

 

[Joerg]

Gbaji apparently used adamantine claws to mutilate Korasting's womb. If so, then adamantium is not necessarily antithetical to Chaos.

[EricW]

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

Gbaji apparently used adamantine claws to mutilate Korasting's womb. If so, then adamantium is not necessarily antithetical to Chaos.

Yes but Gbaji cheated, he doesn't detect as law or chaos. 

[Erol of Backford]

Looking to list the adamantium items that are known. (Please post if you know of more even if non canon.)

Unbreakable Sword - broken

Spike - Griffin Mountain

Rod - mentioned in Digest 2007 post below

Column - Rainbow Mounds

Rockmolder's Axe - not canon but who hasn't enjoyed that in some campaign somewhere?

Dwarvish Gatling Gun - https://glorantha.steff.in/digests/GloranthaDigest/vol05/5687.html

Question, could smaller pieces of Truestone not be used as arrowheads? Has anyone done this in their games? Sling bullets I think I recall but not where...

From the Digest in the 90's: possibly weaker chaos beasts would die simply by touching an adamantium item. I like that maybe they need to roll their Con on a die 20 or less or be paralyzed or something... that would be interesting. I agree that Truestone is refined law and should have some antichaos powers...

Also from the Digest - Bill Thompson - 1997

Adamantium then is Truestone that has been taken by the Mostali and tempered. In effect they have taken and strengthened the order within it. The conclusion here is that Law is not the antithesis of Chaos, Order is. Eurmal was not a chaotic God so much as he was a dis-ordered God. Magic is a weakening of the ties of order which allow Chaos to act in the world (a microcosm of the God world) and from the Chaos comes the true power of magic creation. Adamantium as a refined source of order reinforces the order of the world around it and hence becomes the bane of magic. Acting to tie together that which magic loosens.

Digest 2000 - Now, the Mostali take this truestone which already has pretty heavy >cultural significance and they place there strongest magics upon it, reforging it and making it purer. The end result is Adamantium which is focused Stasis. Another note different source: Maybe pure Law is solidified Stasis.

Digest 2007 - Way back when we were playing up in Balazar, our bunch had some crazy ideas about taking that adamantium rod, and someone running a suicide mission right down the Bat's throat with it. We figured that the Bat would destroy the guy's soul, but the anti-magic effect of the adamantium would give it Hell's own stomach ache, and it would probably go berserk, at the very least. Go back to it's own plane, and need to be resummoned by Moonson, at the best.

Is this the first Law Staff? Does anyone know anything about Old Rod in Brolia? It appears on the maps in FS & Entekosiad but isn't mentioned in the body of either text.
I've some ideas as to what it might be but it would be nice to know if there is some secret "official" lore about it of which I wasn't aware.

Digest 2000 - Extended contact with Truestone will destroy any Chaos creature so some manner of attack or containment might be worked out with an incredibly
generous GM... don't count on this.

 

[EricW]

10 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Looking to list the adamantium items that are known. (Please post if you know of more even if non canon.)

Unbreakable Sword - broken

Spike - Griffin Mountain

Rod - mentioned in Digest 2007 post below

Column - Rainbow Mounds

Rockmolder's Axe - not canon but who hasn't enjoyed that in some campaign somewhere?

Dwarvish Gatling Gun - https://glorantha.steff.in/digests/GloranthaDigest/vol05/5687.html

Question, could smaller pieces of Truestone not be used as arrowheads? Has anyone done this in their games? Sling bullets I think I recall but not where...

From the Digest in the 90's: possibly weaker chaos beasts would die simply by touching an adamantium item. I like that maybe they need to roll their Con on a die 20 or less or be paralyzed or something... that would be interesting. I agree that Truestone is refined law and should have some antichaos powers...

Also from the Digest - Bill Thompson - 1997

Adamantium then is Truestone that has been taken by the Mostali and tempered. In effect they have taken and strengthened the order within it. The conclusion here is that Law is not the antithesis of Chaos, Order is. Eurmal was not a chaotic God so much as he was a dis-ordered God. Magic is a weakening of the ties of order which allow Chaos to act in the world (a microcosm of the God world) and from the Chaos comes the true power of magic creation. Adamantium as a refined source of order reinforces the order of the world around it and hence becomes the bane of magic. Acting to tie together that which magic loosens.

Digest 2000 - Now, the Mostali take this truestone which already has pretty heavy >cultural significance and they place there strongest magics upon it, reforging it and making it purer. The end result is Adamantium which is focused Stasis. Another note different source: Maybe pure Law is solidified Stasis.

Digest 2007 - Way back when we were playing up in Balazar, our bunch had some crazy ideas about taking that adamantium rod, and someone running a suicide mission right down the Bat's throat with it. We figured that the Bat would destroy the guy's soul, but the anti-magic effect of the adamantium would give it Hell's own stomach ache, and it would probably go berserk, at the very least. Go back to it's own plane, and need to be resummoned by Moonson, at the best.

Is this the first Law Staff? Does anyone know anything about Old Rod in Brolia? It appears on the maps in FS & Entekosiad but isn't mentioned in the body of either text.
I've some ideas as to what it might be but it would be nice to know if there is some secret "official" lore about it of which I wasn't aware.

Digest 2000 - Extended contact with Truestone will destroy any Chaos creature so some manner of attack or containment might be worked out with an incredibly
generous GM... don't count on this.

 

I think the defining characteristic of adamantium would be incredible rarity?  Otherwise everyone would have some, next to their gallon jug of Styx water. Like PCs never get their hands on it?

 

[mfbrandi]

16 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Maybe pure Law is solidified Stasis.

If you like that general idea, maybe Law is crystalline and Stasis is (or can be) amorphous. Pointy, regular . Blunt, aperiodic .

[Darius West]

On 6/9/2024 at 3:34 PM, Snugz said:

I'd think that it would not, as Chaos destroyed the Spike? Yet The Block made a mess of Wakboth so maybe it's a draw.

The thing is, we don't know how Chaos destroyed the spike.  It obviously exploded.  That's all we know.  I suspect the Mostali, realizing that Chaos was storming the structure, and all was lost, made their adamantine boilers in the basement of the Spike all go over pressure and explode.  The Spike was, after all, the linchpin of the World Machine, so Mostali presence is one of the few other certainties we have.

[Erol of Backford]

9 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

If you like that general idea, maybe Law is crystalline and Stasis is (or can be) amorphous. Pointy, regular . Blunt, aperiodic .

I like the relation but see Law as more of a fractal which I assume dwarves would love the strong repetition and patterns but maybe only those that are apostate?

9 hours ago, Darius West said:

adamantine boilers

I suppose they could be used as high pressured steam projectile weapon and so if mounted on a wagon could be weaponized?

[mfbrandi]

21 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Getting close to drawing triangles of Law using rotated Disorder runes?

Edited June 13 by mfbrandi

[Erol of Backford]

 The first one is definitely a derivative of chaos even my wife feels otherwise!

[mfbrandi]

4 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

All intersections are disorderly. A pessimistic philosophy?

[jajagappa]

19 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Getting close to drawing triangles of Law using rotated Disorder runes?

They are the inherent but unseen flaws in the Spike. (But once you see them, you can't unsee them!)

[mfbrandi]

4 hours ago, jajagappa said:

They are the inherent but unseen flaws in the Spike.

I had a glass wok lid which one day just shattered into a thousand pieces. (Not while in use, thankfully.) I guess the handle was screwed on too tightly.

I imagine the Spike going like that.

Then you have a bunch of Chaos gods peering through the hole and waving embarrassedly. “That hole wasn’t there a minute ago. Uh, hi, guys. What are you doing? We were playing catch, but Krarsht and Kajabor swallowed all the balls.”

[Memestream]

On 6/14/2024 at 2:22 PM, mfbrandi said:

I had a glass wok lid which one day just shattered into a thousand pieces. (Not while in use, thankfully.) I guess the handle was screwed on too tightly.

I imagine the Spike going like that.

Glorantha as a hyperdimensional Prince Rupert's drop?

 

On 6/14/2024 at 10:04 AM, jajagappa said:

They are the inherent but unseen flaws in the Spike. (But once you see them, you can't unsee them!)

It seems that this an instance of a common denominator between Earth and Glorantha. The more highly ordered a system, the greater probability of any failure cascading.

Take a completely perfect system, and it will fail completely with perfection.

[mfbrandi]

9 hours ago, Memestream said:

Glorantha as a hyperdimensional Prince Rupert's drop?

One for the Gloranthan theologians and moral philosophers to argue over, I think:

• “We snipped off the ‘tail’ which was the Spike and the whole world disintegrated.”
• “The tail is gone, but we’re still here at the bulbous end. Don’t make such a fuss.”

The mainstream will be versions, interpretations, and justifications of the first line, perhaps. Shame. 😉

[Erol of Backford]

10 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Shame

For those of us who have not yet take Gloranthian Philosophy 101 why shame?

I find myself somehow thinking of a corgi in a fox den?

Does the bulbs part enter the black-hole that is the void or was it always in it and the tail made everyone think otherwise?

[mfbrandi]

2 minutes ago, Erol of Backford said:

why shame?

As I understand it, if you snap the tail off of a PR drop, the whole thing is destroyed.

All I was saying was that I didn’t think the loss of the Spike–tail was the end of the world. To some people, I guess that means I am unduly optimistic. 😉

Spoiler

I would fail Gloranthan Philosophy 101.

[Erol of Backford]

Is the Sky Dome not made of adamantium?

Is that not where the whole/crack whatever that let chaos in? If not where is the Cosmic Tear?

[Joerg]

7 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Is the Sky Dome not made of adamantium?

IMG the Sky Dome is made of the element of Fire. Metallic fire, possibly (in our world, a metal is both crystalline and an electron plasma, with the latter being the trait of the Fire Rune). The pre-God Learner Seshnegi Bertalor assumed that Tin was the metal of the sky, possibly meaning the blueish Sky Dome that resulted from Lorion's invasion of the Day Sky. The Golden Age Sun Dome may have been an inner, gold-plated dome that got washed away.

I don't see any reason for the Sky Dome to be made of a derivative of Stone - the other elemental domains made by the World Machine (other than Earth) aren't, either.

7 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Is that not where the whole/crack whatever that let chaos in? If not where is the Cosmic Tear?

The invasion of Wakboth's Horde from the North happened where the battle between Shargash and Umath had weakened the outer rim wall of the world. Not the rotating Sky Dome, though - even the stars that are below the horizon on tilt equilibrium are going above the horizon in the north in the midwinter sky.

The Tear is just north of Altinela, and may be the raison d'être for that city state.

[Squaredeal Sten]

On 6/21/2024 at 7:00 PM, Erol of Backford said:

Is the Sky Dome not made of adamantium?

Is that not where the whole/crack whatever that let chaos in? If not where is the Cosmic Tear?

As I have watched this thread, I doubt it more and more.

I am not aware of any canon use of the word adamantium.   If you can find it please tell me where.  It is certainly not in the Metals of Acos list which you can find in W&E.

As far as I can see it is an unfortunate borrowing from D&D.  Its origin appears to be a use of the word adamant to describe the bottom of a flying  city described by Jonathn Swift in Gulliver's Travels.  Adamant meant diamond when Gullivers Travels was written,,

But it was borrowed in the late 1970s to provide a material for armor that extended the Chainmall rules armor class system.

I don't see much benefit from adding it to RuneQuest.  Nor a reason to equate it with Truestone, a material described as solid Law.

 

Edited Sunday at 01:52 AM by Squaredeal Sten
-ed

[metcalph]

Adamant was described in Elder Secrets as being refined Truestone.  Objects made from it included the Immortal Crown of Oronin, the Unbreakbale Sword and the Seven Shots of the Felster.  It is mentioned five times in the Prosopedia, including the Block.

Quote

The Spike is the greatest creation of Mostal. The Spike
is an edifice that he and his creatures built out of Truestone
to house the Celestial Court. Mostal and his crew worked
hard and refined the living Truestone to become legendary
Adamant. This was the pin that held the world together. The
Spike, despite its vast size, intricate interior, and complex
structure, had only a single minute flaw, where Ratslaff the
Trickster tickled Mostal’s nose, causing him to sneeze just as
he struck a blow. CoR: The Earth Goddesses p103

 

[jajagappa]

12 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Is the Sky Dome not made of adamantium?

I'm with Joerg on this - the Sky Dome is the purest, most refined, crystalline form of Fire (otherwise it would be too impure for Dayzatar to touch it).