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Bits of Glorantha you ignore


Jon Hunter

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Are there part of Glorantha that you never use as either you don't like them or you don't understand?

With me ducks never get a mention in games, i have not un-invented them and don't deny them. They just don't appear.

Also Mostali never get used, just because i cant work our how to play them well or involve them in a campaign. 

anyone else?

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Misapplied Worship penalties. If it generates magic, it is working. (luckily a past problem.)

Anti-Vaxination or anti-nuclear sentiments applied to all Orlanthi vs. sorcery.

Fertile Crescent Bronze Age as a limitation to what goes - definitely untrue.

Non-human PCs in mixed parties. Seriously, with all the potential for antagonism and cliches in the cult membership and ethnic background, what's the need? NPCs or sidekicks, no major problem.

Babeester Gor cultists in the party. A non-chaotic subcult of Thed... nothing wrong with Earth Axe women, whether as hunters or as bodyguards, or people clad in trophies of vanquished foes, but I don't need this cult as played by too many (male) players.

Random Geases.

 

Inconvenient creatures: I guess the Jack O'Bear is high on my list, as are dragonsnails - but then I don't play anywhere near the Devil's Marsh, and I am happy to have entire Glorantha campaigns with no more Chaos than an occasional scorpionman raid.

 

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Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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5 hours ago, Jon Hunter said:

Are there part of Glorantha that you never use as either you don't like them or you don't understand?

Some of the weird Lunar cults that came out in ILH2.  Just didn't feel that they fit, and glad to see them largely dropped now.  

I wasn't overly keen on the slarges when they appeared in the old Griffin Island supplement and then later popped up in Tarien.  But I'll probably never get there to worry about.

There are plenty of creatures though that I haven't had the opportunity to use but would (e.g. mermen, Maidstone Archers).  

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5 hours ago, Jon Hunter said:

Are there part of Glorantha that you never use as either you don't like them or you don't understand?

Applying this to published Glorantha background and not rules or esoteric discussion:

Latin God Learner names for creatures RQ3 Bestiary and Anaxials Rooster.

I don't use a lot of the art from the RQ3 Bestiary either - fortunately the useful stuff has better art elsewhere. The runner is perhaps the worst along with the Watchwere. Quite a lot of RQ3 art will never be shown to my players. Most of the creatures are okay and could just use better art to give them a better Glorantha feel.

Watchwere.png.1073ca935b60a5d89459cdcd717f1f6d.pngRunner.png.2ddc2726afd90964b86f28b2e1bddbe5.png

RQ3 also introduced some distinctly non-gloranthan creatures like the the headhanger.

 

 

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10 hours ago, Joerg said:

Inconvenient creatures: I guess the Jack O'Bear is high on my list, as are dragonsnails - but then I don't play anywhere near the Devil's Marsh, and I am happy to have entire Glorantha campaigns with no more Chaos than an occasional scorpionman raid.

Why do you consider Jack O'Bears and dragonsnails to be inconvenient? :huh:

Read my Runeblog about RuneQuest and Glorantha at: http://elruneblog.blogspot.com.es/

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40 minutes ago, davecake said:

Anything that's too overtly science fictional.

That reminds me of one thing I forgot that I do ignore or haven't figured out how to fit in:  the Feldichi and any associated Feldichi artifacts.  Appeared in the Dorastor book originally, and still exist.  But the original writing on them just didn't seem to make sense.

 

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3 hours ago, jajagappa said:

That reminds me of one thing I forgot that I do ignore or haven't figured out how to fit in:  the Feldichi and any associated Feldichi artifacts.  Appeared in the Dorastor book originally, and still exist.  But the original writing on them just didn't seem to make sense.

The SF flying machine appeared in a scenario and was only speculatively identified as Feldichi.  The Scenario even went to far as say that it could have come from the Dawn Age, the EWF, the Gbaji Wars or the God Learner culture.  It's still far too SF for my liking and I would have made it into something like a floating piece of sky rock that rises depending on how much light is shone upon it and sinks if it gets wet.  

The original artifacts in Greg's writing - the singing warding markers, the translating scrolls and the unmelting ice - do not appear science fictionally to me.  My biggest grumble is wondering how did the Dorastrans get from these artifacts and the pseudocosmic egg to the God Project?

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7 hours ago, Runeblogger said:

Why do you consider Jack O'Bears and dragonsnails to be inconvenient? :huh:

I just don't have any Halloween cultural background, so I fail to see pumpkin as threatening. Basically a jack o'bear is a vaguely ursine or humanoid body with a cucumber-like vegetable for a head. Why not a cauliflower-headed snake, or a flower-headed rhino? Not all chimeras can be excused by Chaos.

Granted, that harmonizing attack is fearsome in taking agency from the players. It's the chassis which fails to register.

 

The dragonsnails are an ecological side effect of the Devil polluting the marsh and no problem to me as such, but they don't make much sense as a monster (or a monster worthy of making a new Waha Khan). I am badly reminded of that scene from Austin Powers where for about a minute a vehicle with two protagonists slowly creeps up through a rather small hall to a man standing in the way and screaming in terror without stepping to the side.

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Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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4 hours ago, jajagappa said:

That reminds me of one thing I forgot that I do ignore or haven't figured out how to fit in:  the Feldichi and any associated Feldichi artifacts.  Appeared in the Dorastor book originally, and still exist.  But the original writing on them just didn't seem to make sense.

I have  come to think that the Feldichi _were_ the artifacts.

 

1 hour ago, metcalph said:

The SF flying machine appeared in a scenario and was only speculatively identified as Feldichi.  The Scenario even went to far as say that it could have come from the Dawn Age, the EWF, the Gbaji Wars or the God Learner culture.  It's still far too SF for my liking and I would have made it into something like a floating piece of sky rock that rises depending on how much light is shone upon it and sinks if it gets wet.  

I agree - that item felt out of place.

 

1 hour ago, metcalph said:

The original artifacts in Greg's writing - the singing warding markers, the translating scrolls and the unmelting ice - do not appear science fictionally to me.  My biggest grumble is wondering how did the Dorastrans get from these artifacts and the pseudocosmic egg to the God Project?

The artifacts might have provided a way to convey their "construction plan" into the pseudocosmic egg, although I find it quite hard to have a single (if interrupted but consecutive) writing chance to influence the being emerging from that egg and then seriously to expect perfection. Did their first writing consist of the Man Rune or some similarly pure concept?

The Gold Wheel Dancers with their alien life may have been the necessary component, although they had basically passed away when the project took off.

 

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Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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6 hours ago, Joerg said:

The Gold Wheel Dancers with their alien life may have been the necessary component, although they had basically passed away when the project took off.

The Gold Wheel Dancers I liked a lot.  I had the opportunity to play Speaking Wheel, the last of them, in the Broken Council LARP.  In my final action, I got some of the Dara Happans to place me as the Voice of Nysalor in the God.  So, in my view, they never truly passed away but always became part of something greater.  

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there was much in the past I hadn't touched on, Kralorela for example because I couldn't draw connections with the bronze age Prax that I cut my teeth on, however reading the Guide has started to open up the multiculturalism of Glorantha and while I may never run a game in say Pamaltela, knowing it's influence has really deepened the world for me.

As for pet peeves, flying Orlanthi and other powerful magic that's too common.

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9 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Pumpkins are definitely not cucumber-like (unless you have strangely shaped cucumbers).  But they do make great faces.  

 

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Cucurbitaceae have this squashy interior and a somewhat fleshy outer portion beneath the skin. While I agree that cucumbers may resemble other parts of the human anatomy, to me they are about as little scary as the orange variation. 

Just two weeks ago I learned that the original jack o'lantern was cut from cabbages. How scary would the jack o'bear be with a cabbage head?

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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1 hour ago, Joerg said:

Cucurbitaceae have this squashy interior and a somewhat fleshy outer portion beneath the skin. While I agree that cucumbers may resemble other parts of the human anatomy, to me they are about as little scary as the orange variation. 

Just two weeks ago I learned that the original jack o'lantern was cut from cabbages. How scary would the jack o'bear be with a cabbage head?

Any child in their right mind would be absolutely horrified.

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12 hours ago, Joerg said:

Just two weeks ago I learned that the original jack o'lantern was cut from cabbages. How scary would the jack o'bear be with a cabbage head?

If it harmonises you with a glance, it doesn't matter what the head looks like.

Original jack o'lanterns were made from turnips or mangelwurzels. It would be difficult to carve a cabbage.

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1 hour ago, soltakss said:

If it harmonises you with a glance, it doesn't matter what the head looks like.

Indeed. That's why I object to the pumpkin. I fail to see any connection there.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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On 11/11/2017 at 5:32 AM, Joerg said:

I just don't have any Halloween cultural background, so I fail to see pumpkin as threatening. Basically a jack o'bear is a vaguely ursine or humanoid body with a cucumber-like vegetable for a head. Why not a cauliflower-headed snake, or a flower-headed rhino? Not all chimeras can be excused by Chaos

Neither do I but a vegetable-headed bear is certainly cool chaos. Likewise your other suggestions are also good for the variability of Glorantha chaos. I don't think we have enough chaos plant monsters in Glorantha. Hungry Jack/Hungry Eater are the chaos progenitors of jack o'bears, which makes me think that Chaos Cauliflowers are a good thing.

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Search the Glorantha Resource Site: https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com. Search the Glorantha mailing list archives: https://glorantha.steff.in/digests/

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