Basmoli

[Jusmak]

Hi!

I do not recall, where I found source for basmoli hunschen, cult, spells, other things like that. Does somebody recall, where to find?

[David Scott]

Avalon Hill’s Gods of Glorantha box, the Cults book, under Hykim & Mikyh. There’s a box with the  Spell Versions of the cult. Also Tales of the reaching moon 14, an article by Tom Zunder, rune magic as per GoG.

Edited January 14, 2018 by David Scott

[hkokko]

You will find one pager based on those here https://notesfrompavis.wordpress.com/2017/05/27/gloranthan-cult-one-pagers-renewed-main-page/

[Jusmak]

Thanks, under Hykim & Mikyh, got it. Need to sometime find out those Tales of reaching moon.

[Yelm's Light]

They're probably my favorite hsunchen.  They definitely saw use in my campaign.

[Jusmak]

5 hours ago, Yelm's Light said:

They're probably my favorite hsunchen.  They definitely saw use in my campaign.

Did you give them particular touch for cultural weapons or base% for skills like balazarings had? 

How do hunters imitate actions of great cat? Preferring larger game, stalking near and use of javelins instead of bows? Maybe battle claw as a ritual weapon...

If you have ideas to share, be welcome to enlighten me!

[Noita]

Hunt from Ambush. Stalk prey and lead it into a trap.

In my game the women are the hunters.

[Yelm's Light]

2 hours ago, Jusmak said:

Did you give them particular touch for cultural weapons or base% for skills like balazarings had? 

How do hunters imitate actions of great cat? Preferring larger game, stalking near and use of javelins instead of bows? Maybe battle claw as a ritual weapon...

If you have ideas to share, be welcome to enlighten me!

They're generally solitary or pride-based, although young males will group together occasionally to get into trouble.

They're plainly matriarchal, curious, and mischievous.  Imagine scenes of cubs playfully fighting each other (with a serious purpose, ultimately).  I had a roaming group of young males whose sole apparent purpose in life was to compete at giving unsuspecting Plains wanderers hotfeet.  One of them had come upon an Ignite matrix and figured out how to use it.  He taught his pack-brothers, they'd sneak up on their targets, and if they got caught at it they'd run away, laughing.  (I gave them Hide in Cover and Move Quietly, which the original writeup didn't.)

Also, a qualification to Iskallor's comment about hunting.  'Unattached' young males (those without a pride) must hunt in order to survive, and they also look to do something praiseworthy that might lead to reentry into the pride. The writeup mentions stealing metal weapons as a possible route back.  Regardless, acceptance by a group, whether the pride, a military unit, or simply the roaming pack, is a main driver.

Edited January 15, 2018 by Yelm's Light

[Joerg]

Herd or pack structure doesn't always translate into the human-shaped interactions of Hsunchen. Rathori are way more gregarious than their beast shape side. Telmori tribal packs are beyond anything wolves come up with outside of human-created confinement. Sofali culture is quite different from that of the sea turtles.

The Pendali wars and probably Greymane's tribal peculiarity have Basmoli males as defenders of territory, with the females only joining in when it comes to defending the pride. Females are hunters, and often provide for their males who may be pre-occupied with other pursuits related to territory - the feared "basmoli berserk" units fielded in Praxian warfare.

Few if any Basmoli beastmen still have beast brothers, but they still retain the ability to change (back) into their beast form.

[Jusmak]

I ended up making a bit more like cheetah basmoli character, trusting more in speed than strenght. Although, when figuring out primitive hunting style, I chose her atlatl and javelin. Atlatl is not actual weapon, but a laucher, like any bow flying bolts or arrows. It has no damage dice itself, but damage modifier.  

When using atlatl in game,  do I use atlatl just like any weapon, it's own attack chance and javelin just like ammo? I think it would been a bit better way to deal with like those other lauchers, to give it straight away own damage dice. Anyway, you cannot use it without ammo, except as improvised weapon wooden stick. I have actually learned to use it in real life and it's far better than javelin alone. Do those two need  to be in separate skills? If person studied atlatl, he knows something about throwing javelins too. Basic line of throw and balancing weapon to fly are not so different.

If character makes foci of multimissile 4 into atlatl, does it give not only four magic javelins, but +d6 damage modier them all, or just the original? It is not very well written there, if damage mod. should be calculated or not?

[MJ Sadique]

9 hours ago, Jusmak said:

1/ Do those two need  to be in separate skills? If person studied atlatl, he knows something about throwing javelins too. Basic line of throw and balancing weapon to fly are not so different.

2/ If character makes foci of multimissile 4 into atlatl, does it give not only four magic javelins, but +d6 damage modier them all, or just the original? It is not very well written there, if damage mod. should be calculated or not?

1/ Not really, Atlat skill used with javelin will start at half of the javelin skill. You don't re-start form nil, but almost XD

2/ Javelin (1D8) + Atlat (+1D6) is a 1D8+1D6 Damage weapon; Each Multimissile point can copy at max a 2D6 Damage, So first Multimissile 4 will only create 2 extra-projectile in this case and second, after using the spell on the javelin, it will immediately  create 2 extra non-empaling magic javelin at the moment you use it.

[Jeff]

Heroes Vol. 1, Number 4 has the most accurate write-up of Basmol, although it is quite short. The version in Tales provides lots of detail, but much of it is likely to be dropped or contradicted in future publications.

[David Scott]

It also worth asking which Basmoli are we talking about.

I don’t think they are homogenous in any way. They are not a large group in Genertela by any means and likely have no contact with each other. The Praxian group are the relic of those that were with Basmol when Tada killed him, the others didn’t have this experience. In the Heroes article, it’s worth noting that they don’t have a transform body magic, just head, hands and a strength of lion/berserker magic. Different northern groups may have different magics, with perhaps none being complete. Likewise the Ralios groups became Orlanthi, perhaps with Basmol becoming part of their ancestor worship, the East Wilds clans still have him as a god (not spirit).

The Pamaltelan Tribes are different again, able to transform into lions and travel with lion prides (GtG p589). They are much more numerous (20k) and don’t seem to have suffered the same problems as the Northern groups. These are likely the “standard” type. I’m sure that the Pamaltelan basmoli don’t have the whole Tada and the Lion dance ritual detailed in Borderlands and Beyond (page 9 or in the Borderlands boxed set).

As for their hunting style - lions are are a stalk and jump predator at close quarters. I would imagine hunters getting as close as possible from their prey then leaping with giant lion paws and a lion head for the neck and biting. I’ve seen this at close quarters in Tanzania, unusually it was a male who did this. I saw females attacking prey too, but a huge young male was really impressive. If you get to see them out on Serengeti lounging in the grass with all their prey just wandering around metres from them, you really appreciate that huge split second lunge - berserker move. Everyone knows they are there, they just try to be a few steps ahead of the lions.

i can’t really see them doing ranged weapons or running down their prey. I imagine untransformed basmoli working much the same way - leaping on their prey with stone daggers or if lucky a metal claw in a lion skin loincloth. It’s this whole form of attack that defines the basmoli berserker for me. Close hand to hand combat. Spirit magic would be leaping/jumping and claw/bladesharp based. I’m not discounting other weapon use. It clear that in the Wastelands they would use spears to deter mounted charges deflecting the charge enough to be able to leap on the riders. I’m sure that it’s this that the Nomads fear if they would admit it.  

[Joerg]

3 hours ago, David Scott said:

i can’t really see them doing ranged weapons or running down their prey. I imagine untransformed basmoli working much the same way - leaping on their prey with stone daggers or if lucky a metal claw in a lion skin loincloth.

I would be interested where the Praxian Basmoli would get lionskin for their loincloths from. Do they skin their dead?

[David Scott]

12 minutes ago, Joerg said:

I would be interested where the Praxian Basmoli would get lionskin for their loincloths from. Do they skin their dead?

Praxian lionskin loincloths would be a rareity. The occasional lion is still born amongst them (I’m sure it’s in the sources somewhere, but don’t breed) of course they get skinned, the spirit has departed, the body is defleshed, the bones are temporarily buried to be collected later for making into charms and ceremonial regalia for khans/shaman. The head skin becomes the shaman’s head dress, embodying basmol/basmoli themself. Teeth and claws become the greatest charms, penis for the clans fertility, etc. Rib bones become armour. A dead lion is a rich resource for a Tribe starved of such things.

[Jusmak]

18 hours ago, David Scott said:

As for their hunting style - lions are are a stalk and jump predator at close quarters. I would imagine hunters getting as close as possible from their prey then leaping with giant lion paws and a lion head for the neck and biting. 

i can’t really see them doing ranged weapons or running down their prey. I imagine untransformed basmoli working much the same way - leaping on their prey with stone daggers or if lucky a metal claw in a lion skin loincloth. It’s this whole form of attack that defines the basmoli berserker for me. Close hand to hand combat. Spirit magic would be leaping/jumping and claw/bladesharp based. I’m not discounting other weapon use. It clear that in the Wastelands they would use spears to deter mounted charges deflecting the charge enough to be able to leap on the riders. I’m sure that it’s this that the Nomads fear if they would admit it.  

While this kind of image became more or less into mind from lions' hunting methods, I got worried about survivability of character. It seems that basmoli berserker is formed by heavy use of divine/rune magic and character needs to be runelord to do that kind of feats. Beginning character with only fighting claw and loincloth may prove too challenging task to survive wildlife. I do not want to think this is the case, why numbers of basmoli are that few. Humans are just too slow and weak to hunt lion's way, without heavy use of magic. Small animals are in general just too slow, exept armadillon, turtles and I cannot imagine attempt to leap bull's back would end very nicely for a human. Human would need a tree or cliff jump on larger animal, and more probably just takes damage from fall, 1d6 to random hit location... Or is it just me received too many injuries lately?

But, when heading to runelevel and sacrificing enough POW to get basmoli teeth, claw spells. Oh, just checked runemagic is available at acolyte level as priests have, which I interpreted meaning renevable spells... So, it does not take forever. 

For keeping character alive and hunting successfully, for that reason spear and javelin, but when maturing maybe leaving use of those. Bladesharp, mobility (gives better strikerank also), but how about martial arts? Does primitive cultures practise those or is it mainly product of civilized culture? That double dice, which skill gives to natural weapons, can be seen as aimed successful hit to more vulnerable spot, like neck or joint. Lion often suffocates victim by biting throat. For a beginning character double dice is handy, if he wants to be successful in hand to hand combat without real melee weapon. But when it comes to spells like lion's head, claw does it double also that natural weapon dice 1d8 => 2d8?

Actually managed to find Heroes vol.1 #4 from Wayne's Books at price 3,99$, but postage is going to be 21 $, ouch.

Edited January 24, 2018 by Jusmak

[David Scott]

1 hour ago, Jusmak said:

I cannot imagine attempt to leap bull's back would end very nicely for a human. Human would need a tree or cliff jump on larger animal, and more probably just takes damage from fall, 1d6 to random hit location... Or is it just me received too many injuries lately?

I have no problem with this especially in light of Bronze age Cretan Bull leaping:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull-leaping

https://web.archive.org/web/20070212124218/http://www.strangehorizons.com/2005/20050124/bull-leaping-a.shtml

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull-leaping#/media/File:Goya_Tauromachia4.jpg

The last image clearly shows the link to spear use for me in the form a vaulting stick.

 

[David Scott]

2 hours ago, Jusmak said:

Humans are just too slow and weak to hunt lion's way, without heavy use of magic.

Modern humans not Hsunchen lion folk

2 hours ago, Jusmak said:

It seems that basmoli berserker is formed by heavy use of divine/rune magic and character needs to be runelord to do that kind of feats. Beginning character with only fighting claw and loincloth may prove too challenging task to survive wildlife.

Initiates can sacrifice for Rune points so can use the transform spells. Spirit practitioners will quickly acquire this standard magic. Youngsters will go after smaller animals - in Prax impala are likely a common prey - High Llamas, Bison and the occasional rhino are for the experts. It would be a group effort on larger prey.

2 hours ago, Jusmak said:

I do not want to think this is the case, why numbers of basmoli are that few.

There are a two scenarios here:

High Mortality - Normal/high Birth rate or Normal Mortality - low birth rate

The first reflects your outlook, the second I believe is the real one although both can work.

Edited January 24, 2018 by David Scott

[Joerg]

I guess this is a RuneQuest problem (and appropriately in this place rather than the Glorantha section). Where in HeroQuest you don't have to think about statting the people of a certain group of Praxians, giving them a number of default "properties" as their cultural keyword, in RQ you have to tailor the minutia in stats. Clearly a normal spectrum of human stats would result in a huge number of unsurvivable individuals for many if not all of the Praxians.

However, we have been told from the very beginning that there are quite a lot of varieties in body types among the Praxians. Llama riders tend to be taller, bison and rhino riders to be stockier and stronger, and impala riders need to be small in order not to do a Vogon number on their mounts.

Nobody has a problem declaring Impala and Bolo Lizard riders pygmies, since that choice leads to a special set of stats worse than the average human at least in size, but also in strength. But there has been quite a bit of criticism for making the Agimori Men-and-a-Half not only larger than life, but "superhuman" in the terms of RQ stats.  Still, one obvious way to  make sure that mainly viable lion berserk hunters result in Basmoli breeding would be to adjust the stat range for Basmoli characters. Which then would make them a favorite background choice for minimaxers.

While these sound like arguments from 25 years ago on rec.games.rpg, I guess a certain part of the target audience for a system like RQ feels right at home there.

With the runes combined with the cultic background providing some stat mods in character creation, tackling the Basmoli this way might be an alternative. Their culture rune is obviously Beast, as is true for all Hsunchen.

That comes as a paired rune, however, limiting their character development unlike those characters who take an element for their culture rune no big problem having 100+% in air if playing an Orlanthi with all the trappings is what you want, but create a Basmoli with beast in that range and you basically get a lion in the wrong body, with the magic to change that for a short term way too costly.

Basmoli are Hsunchen, and it is appropriate for Hsunchen to lapse in their humanity ever now and then. Calling the Basmoli warband the berserks suggests that the Basmoli are prone to this a little more than say Damali would isn't a big problem, either.

That's where the not quite core runes from HQ1 would come in handily. There are two hunter runes, one for Yinkin (a cat's paw) and one for Odayla (a bear's paw), either of which might apply to the Basmoli and the essence of both their magic and their lifestyle. After all, they are predator Hsunchen, like the only other Hsunchen in the region, the Telmori. Giving them a non-paired rune to develop would be the "fair" method, rules-wise.

There might be an animist loophole via voluntary possession of a lion ancestral spirit, but that (like the Men-and-a-Half Fire stuff too) feels a bit like a built-in rune lord feature.

The elemental affinity approach works fine for Orlanthi, Praxian Beast Riders, and to some extent also for the Pelorians. It sort of breaks when there are no clear elemental preferences in a culture, which makes me sort of anxious about developing Malkioni or Kralori RQ characters.

[styopa]

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

While these sound like arguments from 25 years ago on rec.games.rpg, I guess a certain part of the target audience for a system like RQ feels right at home there.

There's no quick-button for it, so Rather Patronizing, +1

[David Scott]

On 22/01/2018 at 9:34 PM, Jusmak said:

I ended up making a bit more like cheetah basmoli character, trusting more in speed than strenght.

How to escape from a lion or cheetah - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-42792190

[Jusmak]

On 25.1.2018 at 5:09 PM, David Scott said:

How to escape from a lion or cheetah - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-42792190

This remind a bit different catch games played when I was child. Manouvarabilty was key element even then, when dodging away catcher. It is actually quite similar, when nowadays training boxing. Dodging there is intuitive, instinctive movement in situation, where is no time to reason anything and no time to actually react in very short distance. Nowadays father to 3 year boy, and sometimes thinking resambles to animal world. Not only catching plays, but climbing too. He is really a simpanse. Some things comes so naturally to children.

There was no rune magic for novices, only spirit in Cults of Glorantha under Mikyh & Hykim, but since Joerg's imput I became thinking Basmolis could benefit from a bit more writeup. RQ3 RAW does not serve so well for basmoli or ideal of basmoli hunting. Game like sable antilope move 9, impala move 13, then human move 3...

Heroes vol 1. is on it's way to give ideas for modifications. Until that, it seems to serve well enough to study spears and hand to hand combat giving both human and beastside expression in field of battle and hunt. While stats are normal human stats, I gave basmoli cultural skill points like balazarings have in Griffin mountain to stalking skills, climbing and started to play short hunting trips. That actually worked well enough. It's othervise annoying to have negative skillmod % from great size and pow, when playing primitive hunter.

Edited January 27, 2018 by Jusmak

[Jusmak]

On 23.1.2018 at 10:14 AM, Jeff said:

Heroes Vol. 1, Number 4 has the most accurate write-up of Basmol, although it is quite short. The version in Tales provides lots of detail, but much of it is likely to be dropped or contradicted in future publications.

I got Heroes and it was most helpful. There are contradictions in other sources, so this one made more sense. For example in Cults of Glorantha book "Basmol Strenght" -spell was much altered, whole berserking effect taken away. I was a bit confused what people are talking about, when talking about basmoli berserks, no berserks anywhere I can see, until now. Also it became clearer, if novices may get a runespell free during holy day seremonies, POW sacrifices does not need to become so costly. For a playing character this makes much more sense, and one point runespell may be THAT lifesaver for a starting basmoli hunter.