Other Runes

[Jolt]

I came across a set of fonts that I had picked up over 10 years ago but never installed.  Both are Gloranthan Runes but there are some that I don't recognize.  I've uploaded a Word doc with the symbols that I don't recognize (looking at them again, I do recognize the Yinkin rune and the variant Plant rune; some old notes that I have state that the black square is something called Malign Earth but I don't know where I got that from nor what it means).  Anyone recognize any of them?

 

Edited May 9, 2018 by Jolt
Alright, I've saved the file as a jpeg.

[Richard S.]

9 minutes ago, Jolt said:

I came across a set of fonts that I had picked up over 10 years ago but never installed.  Both are Gloranthan Runes but there are some that I don't recognize.  I've uploaded a Word doc with the symbols that I don't recognize (looking at them again, I do recognize the Yinkin rune and the variant Plant rune; some old notes that I have state that the black square is something called Malign Earth but I don't know where I got that from nor what it means).  Anyone recognize any of them?

Runes.docx

Maybe you could provide pictures as I don't have that don't installed so can't see the runes. I'd assume they're probably HW or HQ1 runes.

[scott-martin]

Hi Jolt -- the key to the ones in the Glorantha Core Font is here: http://www.glorantha.com/docs/glorantha-core-rune-font/

The Hero Wars Runes uppercase characters are more esoteric. I see the variant "new" Beast (B), "Malign" Earth (E), Inner World / Mortal World (G), Animism (H), Theism (I), Vithela (L), Solar Pantheon (M), "Kralorela" (N), Rokar (T), Lotus Society (X) and will report back on the others here if nobody beats us to it.

 

[David Scott]

55 minutes ago, Jolt said:

Anyone recognize any of them?

Pretty much all of them. They come from the "Runes for everything" era (my quote). A lot of them are "god" runes representing original deities. There was a doc online with a key to them. Some have been retired or abandoned, some are still current, some will reappear soon.

From memory 1st column Please correct me.

Cold

Undead (unlife) - in CoT

God - Godday in Core rune font

Law

Godunya (originally dragon)

Storm Tribe

Shargash

Spirit - current

Horse (sub-beast rune) - in Core rune font

Looks very familiar on the tip of my tongue

Heler (rain)

Yinkin or Odayla I always confuse these two, the other is second column 2 down

Light - current

Pamalt

Barntar - but I'm wrong

Sartar / Greg (Current)

Hell

 

 

[Tindalos]

Many of these, I've only seen before in the old rune list pdf for HW/HQ1. Many obscure and minor runes. Here's what I can find, going column by column:

Column 1: Cold, Undeath, the Gods World, Law, Kralorela/Dragon, the Storm Pantheon, Shargash, Spirit, Horse, Malkion, Rain, Yinkin/Sensuality/Alynx, Light, Pamalt/Power, Barntar, Sartar, Hell.

Column 2: Heat, Bear/Hunting, Making, Gerlant, Plant (Replaced the old plant rune for a while), Sedenya, Teelo Norri? (I think. The rune's very slightly different), the Mostali "Pantheon", Fire/Sky, Undeath again, Urvairinus, the Wolf Pirates, Water (Replaced the old water rune for a while), Chaos (god learner rune to indicate chaos as a power rune, in opposition to Law. Or the London Underground),  Yanafal Tarnils, Zaytenera/Zaytenerus, Magasta Sshalorgesh, ???.

Column 3: Dark Earth, ???, Rokar, the Living Dragon Society, Mineral, Malkion again, ???, the Floating Seed Movement, Iron Dwarf Being, Lanbril, Arkat, Recreation, the Mortal World, the Spirit World, the Sorcery World, the Vithelan Pantheon, Force/Shargash, the Gods of the Future.

Column 4: Mashunasan? (I think, the rune's somewhat different), the Lotus Society,  Daruda? (I think, the rune's somewhat different), Beast (Replaced the old beast rune for a while), Kralorela/Dragon again, the Celestial Pantheon, the Great Navigator/Army of Tomorrow, Servants of the Cleansing, Barantaros, Asrelia, Babeester Gor.

Sorry about the ones I can't figure out.

There's a decent mix of specialized forms of other runes (Bear, Cold, Dark Earth), personal and organizational heraldry (Servants of the Clensing, Gerlant), and personal deity runes (Pamalt, Shargash, Asrelia).

 

[David Scott]

3 hours ago, Jolt said:

Anyone recognize any of them?

Look here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20050310041209/http://www.glorantha.com:80/library/rune_list.pdf

 

[Jolt]

Thanks all!

David Scott, that list is awesome.  I've never seen most of those before.

[g33k]

6 hours ago, Jolt said:

Thanks all!

David Scott, that list is awesome.  I've never seen most of those before.

I believe there was (as noted) a "rune for everything" phase, but much of that is now considered non- or at best demi-canonical...  ;)

[davecake]

Most of these I think are useful to consider as symbols in use by someone, and possibly many people, but not Runes in the same sense the core Runes are. If you are trying to write rules that incorporate the idea of Runes, probably best to ignore them for the most part. But if you are looking for mysterious symbols, decorative motifs, your characters tattoo, etc - knock yourself out. Eg compare the way the Sartar Rune has been used in Moon Design products -it’s known, it’s important, it’s probably not a separate affinity or the RQ equivalent. 

[jajagappa]

7 hours ago, davecake said:

Most of these I think are useful to consider as symbols in use by someone, and possibly many people, but not Runes in the same sense the core Runes are.

That's how I would use them as well.  

[Ali the Helering]

Actually, I would want to encourage players to indulge their originality as we co-operatively work to incorporate their chosen cult runes into the game.

I do prefer a complex religious landscape, and I feel that this is a big contribution to that.

YGWV, and mine certainly does!

 

[Psullie]

there are runes and there are Runes - anyone can create the former, a hero quest is required for the latter

[Tindalos]

Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes notes that most of the lesser runes are subsets of Core Runes, and that the game simulates them as just placing restrictions on the deity's runes to show their usage. (Page 72)

I think, conversely, you can also use the lesser runes in play to as a reminder of the limitations of a character's rune affinity usage.

For example, Yelmalio is frequently given the Light Rune, a specialized form of the Fire rune, showing he has lost the heat and warmth of the original rune. This can help as a reminder that Yelmalians can't make arrows burst into flame, and that they may need to find another way to defeat gorp and other similar creatures.

Likewise, you can use the Horse, Yinkin, or Bear runes as subsets of the beast rune (often combined with an element). Acting as a reminder that an Odaylan isn't likely to be able to use their rune to calm down a herd of cattle (It might even act as a flaw!) Or a Babeester Gori could have the Malign Earth to remind the player that they can't use the more life-supporting aspect of the earth. And Helerans use the Rain rune to show their god's power of Water-in-Air, while Pamalt's shamans can use the Power rune to do... whatever it is that makes the Power rune different from the Mastery rune.

 

 

[Ali the Helering]

4 hours ago, Tindalos said:

Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes notes that most of the lesser runes are subsets of Core Runes, and that the game simulates them as just placing restrictions on the deity's runes to show their usage. (Page 72)

I think, conversely, you can also use the lesser runes in play to as a reminder of the limitations of a character's rune affinity usage.

For example, Yelmalio is frequently given the Light Rune, a specialized form of the Fire rune, showing he has lost the heat and warmth of the original rune. This can help as a reminder that Yelmalians can't make arrows burst into flame, and that they may need to find another way to defeat gorp and other similar creatures.

Likewise, you can use the Horse, Yinkin, or Bear runes as subsets of the beast rune (often combined with an element). Acting as a reminder that an Odaylan isn't likely to be able to use their rune to calm down a herd of cattle (It might even act as a flaw!) Or a Babeester Gori could have the Malign Earth to remind the player that they can't use the more life-supporting aspect of the earth. And Helerans use the Rain rune to show their god's power of Water-in-Air, while Pamalt's shamans can use the Power rune to do... whatever it is that makes the Power rune different from the Mastery rune.

 

 

My thinking is that, rather than acting as a restriction, the 'derived' rune qualifies the way in which the core rune is known.

Using your Yelmalian example, I would see the Light rune indicating an intrusion into Darkness rather than the fiery destruction one might expect of Elmal or Yelm.

His fertility aspect is active in the period of ripening, rather than in the drying of fields.

I do like your image of an Odaylan calming frightened cattle. It could, of course, be on the level of "They thought the Sakkar was scary? Wait till they get a load of me!"

 

[davecake]

On 5/12/2018 at 7:31 PM, Tindalos said:

while Pamalt's shamans can use the Power rune to do... whatever it is that makes the Power rune different from the Mastery rune.

The Pamalt rune is about cooperation and coming together to make something greater than the parts. The Mastery rune as a rune of leadership implies that the leader is the leader on merit, because they are the greatest in the group. Pamalt explicitly isn't the best at anything, except bringing people together (which is the best thing to be good at, because it lets huge things be achieved). So eg he isn't the best warrior, but he still defeats foes that others cannot defeat, he does so by getting many friends to help him by giving him the best armour, the best weapons, the best magic, the best advice, etc. He isn't the greatest magician, but he can bring all the great magicians to work together, something none of them are capable of. And so on. 

Hope this helps. 

[davecake]

On 5/12/2018 at 7:31 PM, Tindalos said:

you can also use the lesser runes in play to as a reminder of the limitations of a character's rune affinity usage

Spot on. 

And where a lesser rune is more about a mild specialisation than about a significant limit (eg a specific Thunder Brother, or a hero cult) there really isn't a lot of point in distinguishing a specific rune in play.

Edited May 16, 2018 by davecake

[Ali the Helering]

1 hour ago, davecake said:

Spot on. 

And where a lesser rune is more about a mild specialisation than about a significant limit (eg a specific Thunder Brother, or a hero cult) there really isn't a lot of point in distinguishing a specific rune in play.

I have to disagree. The player can play up a 'lesser' rune to their heart's content, and thereby make the character ever more distinctive. A small starting difference can be used to great long term effect.

[Tarumath]

On 5/12/2018 at 1:31 PM, Tindalos said:

while Pamalt's shamans can use the Power rune to do... whatever it is that makes the Power rune different from the Mastery rune.

 

 

Conditions Runes unlike other Runes can be rebundant (You don't need Mastery to have decent leadership powers because they already exist in all the elemental runes, the Harmony Rune and a few others like Truth), they modify the other Runes or emphasize some of their aspects.

[davecake]

2 minutes ago, Ali the Helering said:

The player can play up a 'lesser' rune to their heart's content, and thereby make the character ever more distinctive. A small starting difference can be used to great long term effect.

Absolutely, conceptually. But I was talking about Runes within HeroQuest (and, more speculatively, similar arguments will probably apply to RQG, though there will be differences). So I'm talking about the ways in which Runes are specially treated within the game system. Runes, capital R, generally has a specific game meaning at a few places, and so is a bit different to the average ability. In particular, a Rune is always a magical Keyword, we know PCs (and most NPCs, or at least most humanish PCs) have the three including one Element rune and at least one Power Rune. But the vast majority of 'lesser' runes can be treated as more specific versions of a well known base Rune, the system allows this to be expressed in the game system through breakouts etc, and that is a lot easier way to do it that makes the ways the runes relate fairly obvious. 

Even if it is terribly important to players, and play, that a given character might be a member of Ohorlanth vs Helamakt vs Hedkoranth (and back in the Hero Wars days that was represented by three different minor runes), in HeroQuest play we represent all three as sub-cults that use the Storm Rune. There really isn't a lot of value in representing it as a separate Rune, because they are all expressions of the Air rune, and outside of casting overt magic (which has its own separate rules anyway, there being no universals), you can treat them pretty much the same. But those minor runes show up in the game system in other ways - mostly, as limits on how you can use the rune directly, and in different abilities you might create as breakouts. These are ways in which characters become distinctive, but these details are outside the system of Runes (both cosmological and rules wise), they are all just expressions of one Rune. It really doesn't seem worth keeping track of them as separate Runes, especially as it means everyone has to keep track of many dozens of runes and keep mentally translating them back to the base Runes. 

Only when the minor Rune is either somewhat outside that main system and it has no obvious base Rune that derives from, or when it limits, rather than extends, the base Rune in ways that will apply in many uses of the Rune, does expressing the minor rune as a Rune within the game really pay off. Communication or Eternal Battle don't obviously extend a specific other Rune, or change its meaning profoundly. Light and Shadow limit the things you can do with that Rune really profoundly. So it seems like it is worth keeping track of those Runes separately to me. 

[davecake]

Its also worth noting the idea that in normal Gloranthan life the runes are often incorporated into complex motifs, combined, extended, etc. Some of those minor runes are sort of that. But there also things like the mark of Zorak Zoran, which Jeff mentioned in the art direction notes for RQG shared today (it is the eye made from a sideways Disorder rune extending into 'horns' tipped with Death runes we see on this troll), and someone on the reversed runes thread mentioned a similar design of two extended Air runes, one reversed, overlapping to suggest Disorder (suggesting 'Orlanth troublemaker'), and so on. We also have other alphabets that would get combined, standard iconography, etc. In play and art it is great to mix all this stuff up. 

I've been working on ideas for eg Western occult art that incorporates runes but also other symbolism. 

[Ali the Helering]

Sorry, still have to disagree 🤔

I don't think that having a 'lesser' Rune makes it a lower case rune. The degree of specialisation can make it more precisely effective than a generalized 'core' Rune. 

Having a narrow vision for a keyword is interesting in itself, as though one has taken on unforced gaeasa.

[davecake]

On 5/17/2018 at 12:10 AM, Ali the Helering said:

I don't think that having a 'lesser' Rune makes it a lower case rune. The degree of specialisation can make it more precisely effective than a generalized 'core' Rune. 

You are entirely free to make your own rules. I'm just clarifying what the existing ones are. Apparently not clarifying as much as I had hoped. 

[Ali the Helering]

2 hours ago, davecake said:

You are entirely free to make your own rules. I'm just clarifying what the existing ones are. Apparently not clarifying as much as I had hoped. 

The rules at this given moment, yes.

Having been gregged fifteen ways till Tuesday since I started with RQ2 in the late 70s, I prefer to find the form of play that is both MGF and reflective of the ancient RW.  YGMV.  MGDV.

[davecake]

On 5/21/2018 at 11:01 PM, Ali the Helering said:

The rules at this given moment, yes.

Having been gregged fifteen ways till Tuesday since I started with RQ2 in the late 70s, I prefer to find the form of play that is both MGF and reflective of the ancient RW. 

MGF and reflective of the ancient RW are not necessarily congruent - players often enjoy anachronisms, and seldom enjoy the level of inconsistency we see with the actual RW reflected in the rules. There are pretty good reasons why fashions in game design has gradually shifted away from detailed simulationism.

But its also worth noting that the move from 'lots of tiny small specific runes for each entity' back towards focussing on the core runes for rules purpose had a lot to do with playtesting - and it is totally not a case of 'gregging', eg its not a change in 'Glorantha', but a rules change of how we represent Gloranthan detail in play. There is still a rune for eg Hedkoranth, and Hedkoranth still has slightly different powers to the other Thunder Brothers. But in play it turns out to be much less confusing to say 'Hedkoranths magic is a sub-cult of Orlanth that works via the Storm rune and grants a few extra abilities', than it is to have a special rune for Hedkoranth that no one else will recognise, when 90% of the time you character is effectively a Storm wielding Orlanth cultist that throws Thunder stones instead of lightning bolts. Its like caring about whether your dagger is a poignard or a saex, or the colour of your shirt - cool if it matters, potentially culturally very significant, but not a difference we care about in the rules most of the time.  The hundreds of special runes in the Hero Wars era were great for adding that cultural depth we like, but make the rules more confusing, not less (you ended up with special cases of how to deal with sub-cult changes, overlap between gods, overly specific mythologies, and lots of other weird little things that actually made the rules work less like the ancient RW). 

But I love them for cultural detail. That bit in the HeroQuest orlanthi character sheets where you fill in your tribal/character tattoos, for example? Reach for that list... 

[Ali the Helering]

2 hours ago, davecake said:

MGF and reflective of the ancient RW are not necessarily congruent - players often enjoy anachronisms, and seldom enjoy the level of inconsistency we see with the actual RW reflected in the rules. There are pretty good reasons why fashions in game design has gradually shifted away from detailed simulationism.

But its also worth noting that the move from 'lots of tiny small specific runes for each entity' back towards focussing on the core runes for rules purpose had a lot to do with playtesting - and it is totally not a case of 'gregging', eg its not a change in 'Glorantha', but a rules change of how we represent Gloranthan detail in play. There is still a rune for eg Hedkoranth, and Hedkoranth still has slightly different powers to the other Thunder Brothers. But in play it turns out to be much less confusing to say 'Hedkoranths magic is a sub-cult of Orlanth that works via the Storm rune and grants a few extra abilities', than it is to have a special rune for Hedkoranth that no one else will recognise, when 90% of the time you character is effectively a Storm wielding Orlanth cultist that throws Thunder stones instead of lightning bolts. Its like caring about whether your dagger is a poignard or a saex, or the colour of your shirt - cool if it matters, potentially culturally very significant, but not a difference we care about in the rules most of the time.  The hundreds of special runes in the Hero Wars era were great for adding that cultural depth we like, but make the rules more confusing, not less (you ended up with special cases of how to deal with sub-cult changes, overlap between gods, overly specific mythologies, and lots of other weird little things that actually made the rules work less like the ancient RW). 

But I love them for cultural detail. That bit in the HeroQuest orlanthi character sheets where you fill in your tribal/character tattoos, for example? Reach for that list... 

Gregging can work in a number of ways, and a change in the rule system changes the way the world is perceived.  That fashion has changed simply means that it is fashion, not that it is better.  IMO the complexity of the rules is something that can either enhance or hinder play and simulation, depending on the group, and I do not for one second believe you can have overly specific mythologies if you want to approach RW religious complexity. 

Some of us remain simulationist.  I am seriously considering abandoning HQ, and returning to RQ, although not without regret.