Danger, challenges and opponents in Umathela

[Manu]

I played in Sartar for years. It was quite easy to imagine chat could be opponents in adventures in Sartar and Prax : Broos, scorpionmen, Tusk rider, all other haos, prax tribe, Undead in the marsh, Lunar, bandits, ...

 

But I have more difficulties finding this in Umathela : Lascerdans are dead, Vadelis are defeated, no chaos, ...

Then except a skirmish from Orlanthi tribes, what can give challenges to the PC (on the combat side I mean)? What are the big threats, monsters, dangers?

[Julian Lord]

Chaos isn't absent from Pamaltela, but it tends to take the form of unique, often huge-sized monstrosities rather than the chaotic races typical to Genertela.

Inter-tribal and inter-species warfare is a frequent threat -- but the Umathelans do have some sort of understanding with the Aldryami, so these latter are less hostile to them than towards other Pamaltelan humans, and they often act as peace-brokers during conflicts between the Orlanthi and the Malkioni of the region. Conflict with Fonritian slavers is more common. Large-scale wars tend to be a lot less common in Pamaltela than Genertela though, partly because the various Pamaltelans have a broad cultural aversion to it from a history of past disasters, partly because the Land God Pamalt is living (contrary to Genert's death), so that there are fewer mythological sources of division and strife to cause them.

BTW, on another topic, Guide to Glorantha actually states outright that alynxes are "native" to the Orlanthi area, and are even found uncommonly in the large elf forest.

Edited December 1, 2018 by Julian Lord

[metcalph]

3 hours ago, Manu said:

I played in Sartar for years. It was quite easy to imagine chat could be opponents in adventures in Sartar and Prax : Broos, scorpionmen, Tusk rider, all other haos, prax tribe, Undead in the marsh, Lunar, bandits, ...

 

But I have more difficulties finding this in Umathela : Lascerdans are dead, Vadelis are defeated, no chaos, ...

In eastern Umathela, there are the Fonritans who are as chaotic as the Lunars.  There would be roving bands of bandits and escaped slaves.  

To the north there are the Merfolk.  Their greed and relative strength has led many of the coastal cities on the verge of plundering each other to pay tribute.

In the wilds, there are God Learner ruins.  Every now and then bad magic emanate from the ruins to plague human civilization.  Somebody needs to go to the ruins to seal them up.  But the elves have forbidden them to humans as the bad magics are not their problem.  

In Gargulla (Guide p633), the cult of the Son of Chaos are another source of chaos (I've taken to calling the Son of Chaos Demogorgon as that was originally a mispelling of Demiurge.

The Vadeli may be defeated by they are still plotting.  They are intent on corrupting the human rulers and encouraging the the construction of massive magical projects for defence against the Fonritans.  

In the West, the dwarves might have been building a fortress beneath the Stone Plains p640.  The Iron Statue is actually a colossus that will fight in some future battle.  They are busy selling weapons to humans and encouraging them to defy the Woodlands Judgements.

 

 

[Manu]

12 hours ago, metcalph said:

In Gargulla (Guide p633), the cult of the Son of Chaos are another source of chaos (I've taken to calling the Son of Chaos Demogorgon as that was originally a mispelling of Demiurge

Speaking of Gargulla. I see the text but I can't find it on the maps...

[Manu]

12 hours ago, metcalph said:

The Vadeli may be defeated by they are still plotting.  They are intent on corrupting the human rulers and encouraging the the construction of massive magical projects for defence against the Fonritans.

From a pure RQG point of view (rules), are they as normal humans with blue skin?

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, Manu said:

From a pure RQG point of view (rules), are they as normal humans with blue skin?

The Vadeli in Umathela will be predominantly brown-skinned. There aren't any blue Vadeli on Glorantha (yet), thanks to the efforts of another immortal blue-skinned sorcerer. It looks like they have significant enclaves in the coastal cities. And while they have been defeated, they are still there, plotting the (not so) secret world domination.

Being of Danmalastan stock, I expect them to rarely (if ever) exceed SIZ 16.

As immortals, they will be likely to have trained their trainable stats to high values. Their core skills are likely in the master range.

There are lots of children in the Vadeli enclaves, but you will be hard put to find any adolescents or young adults.

[Manu]

Sorry for the blue skin... Brow indeed.

Ok, small human. Immortal. But as they are mostly slaves or lower class, shouldn't they spend more time working and surviving than train their stats? Or even skills? Except maybe the one used for their day to day job.

[Julian Lord]

Just in general terms, having blue skin is something that can range in effect from being just an individual characteristic with zero game effects whatsoever (apart from the obvious roleplaying ones) all the way to being the marker of belonging to a particular sub-population of humans with specific variants during character generation, and on the left field to be a foul chaotic feature, or contrariwise some acquired magical Sign of chosenness or hero-nature or shaman-weirdness or any other of a plethora of possibilities under the bright Sky of Yelm.

These are Encyclopaedic matters though, unless they're player-character weirdness ones, and so they are by nature dependent on specific world-building decisions, whether by individual Game Masters for their own Campaigns, or by The Chaosium in its official publications as the case may be, or character-creation desires by the inventive, that you should relish !!

[metcalph]

11 hours ago, Manu said:

From a pure RQG point of view (rules), are they as normal humans with blue skin?

The Vadeli are immortal.

However their age distribution is unknown.  Considering they were previously bunched up into two small island groups, I expect the number of immortals to be no larger than 45,000 worldwide.  The remainder would be Vadeli born since the Opening.  There are 9000 in Jrustela, 50,000 in Fonrit and 45,000 in Umathela.  I don't have any idea on the population figures for Fronela or Seshnela.   Assuming an equal spread of immortals to newborns, about three in every ten Vadeli would be an immortal.  Additionally one in every nine Vadeli is a Red.

The newborn Vadeli would be forty at the most so they would have roughly normal stats.  They would have a mixture of spirit magic and divine magic (they don't have rune cults so they would get their rune magic through some sinister occult means).  They would know one or two sorcery spells which they would practice - probably an immortality spell. 

For the most part newborn Vadeli would have regular jobs: fishing, seafaring, crafting and trading or fighting if they are reds.  In addition to whatever taxes they local humans impose on them, they would also kick up a large fraction of their surplus income to the immortals as their immortality spells aren't cheap.  So the newborn are constantly on the lookout for more income.

I seen Sandy suggest one time tat the Vadeli supplement their ranks through conversion, not through ordinary missionary activities but through occult damnation (ie selling a willing mark a scrap of of a grimoire that has the ancient secret of the God-Learners but if studied, the material waprs his worldview and eventually his body into that of a Vadeli).  How many newborns are actually converts is unclear and is probably not helped by teh Vadeli habit of lying about such matters.

The Immortals have most of the wealth and power in Vadeli society.  Each one of them is a  master sorceror.  However they have also been burned quite badly with the collapse of their empire and are now quite cautious, even going so far as to refrain from engaging in battle.  Most of their time is spent performing magics and rituals for some nefarious purpose.

 

 

[Manu]

Just to be sure to understand. You say they are immortal. But they rely on immortality spells for that. Therefore, they are not like the Britini! They are not REAL immortals.

But thanks on the info on these guys.

[Joerg]

5 hours ago, Manu said:

Just to be sure to understand. You say they are immortal. But they rely on immortality spells for that. Therefore, they are not like the Britini! They are not REAL immortals.

Their immortality is tied to observance of sorcerous rites which one might call immortality spells, although their versions only work on people of sufficiently pure Vadeli/immortal ancestry, and involve "material components" better left unsaid. The Vadeli secrets are unpleasant, to say the least. Vadeli that have made it to maturity expect an ageless existence.

[davecake]

I personally think the Vadeli Immortality is through obeying caste rules, same as the Brithini - the source of their immortality predates the split between the races. The Brithini treat the rules as the foundation of a lifestyle and moral philosophy - the Vadeli treat it as a long immortality ritual with no moral significance. There may be some variations where the Vadeli have learnt to interpret the rules 'creatively'. 

There are Vadeli who have found other, variant, ways to become immortal (eg vampirism) but most of them stick with obeying caste rules because it is more convenient and reliable. 

[soltakss]

Another vote for Vadeli being immortal by obeying caste restrictions. I believe their caste rules are different from those of the Brithini, though.

Brithini will say the Vadeli use sorcery for their immortality, because they would, wouldn't they?

[GianniVacca]

On 11/30/2018 at 10:32 PM, Manu said:

But I have more difficulties finding this in Umathela : Lascerdans are dead, Vadelis are defeated, no chaos, ...

 

This is why I ran my Umathelan game in the Second Age.

[Manu]

On 12/19/2018 at 4:50 PM, GianniVacca said:

This is why I ran my Umathelan game in the Second Age.

But I think the Lacerdans are maybe not as dead as everyone thinks they are....

Also, Dead Lacerdans make very good Ghosts

[Joerg]

2 hours ago, Manu said:

But I think the Lacerdans are maybe not as dead as everyone thinks they are...

Neither are the post-Opening Vadeli that conquered.

For threats, you have Malasp and whatever the mostali may send or scare against you and your stronghold...

[styopa]

Pure game-mechanics wise, I've enjoyed presenting Pamaltela generally as a graduated challenge 'tougher' than Genertela - in ways that aren't exportable (otherwise Pamaltelans would have taken over the world).  My players have a party that needs challenges and even a slight tweak like halving the mp recovery rates is having a cumulative effect on how they approach problems.