Bell Digest v930318

Date: Thu, 18 Mar 93 17:15:06 +0100
From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer)
To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest)
Subject: The RuneQuest Daily, Thu, 18 Mar 1993

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From: davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake)
Subject: Third Eye Blue
Message-ID: <9303170832.AA13129@cs.uwa.edu.au>
Date: 17 Mar 93 16:10:28 GMT

Regarding Third Eye Blue - I had tended to think that as the TEB
people are supposed to have stolen the secret of ironworking from the
dwarves, that they used sorcerous enchanting to craft their iron - and
possibly also Form Iron the sorcery spell. However note that according
to RQ3 (though perhaps not RQ4) there is no reason that using
sorcerous enchants requires you to be competent at other sorcery (only
at enchant skill). I must admit I kind of liked the idea that TEB
ironsmiths could have this great magic skill (enchanting iron) yet
otherwise be quite primitive magically. This also fit in well with the
hypothesis that the other Westerners learnt to craft Iron from the
TEB. I certainly never figured them as having any decent magic other
than the Iron-crafting skill.

The only example of TEB magic that we have other than knowing that
they can craft Iron is a real old one. In Apple Lane (the old RQ2
version) the blacksmith, Piku Gastapakis??, is a TEB. The only unusual
magic he knows is 'a song to craft sword pommels into animal heads', I
think. Does it say any different in the RQ3 version?

In short, I don't think that I'll use that TEB writeup - but a good
try anyway.
							Dave Cake


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From: tzunder@cix.compulink.co.uk (Tom Zunder)
Subject: POW*5 to cast
Message-ID: 
Date: 17 Mar 93 18:20:00 GMT


I like POW*5 to cast spirit magic, I also like the basic feel of
sorcery, albeit tweaked to fix the flaws.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
                                        tzunder@cix.compulink.com.uk 

                               "May the Red Moon Illuminate You All!
--------------------------------------------------------------------



---------------------

From: duganw@alleg.edu
Subject: The RuneQuest Daily - Runes
Message-ID: <9303171926.AA29585@alleg.edu>
Date: 17 Mar 93 19:26:11 GMT

Hello!  After reading what information there is on Runequests Runes, I
am still not quite sure on there affect.  So, what does each Rune
affect?  And in what ways?

For example:  

The Fire rune defines the natural proporties of fire.  But does this
mean that a God that "owns" the Fire Rune can make any flame do his
bidding?  If so, in what ways.

Please, I'll take any info : )

bewildered,
	Joe Dugan

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From: mabeyke@batman.b11.ingr.com (boris)
Subject: Re: The RuneQuest Daily, Wed, 17 Mar 1993
Message-ID: <199303172132.AA12574@batman.b11.ingr.com>
Date: 17 Mar 93 21:32:21 GMT

> 
>   The Cult of Elmal
>   [much deleted]
>
>   Also, some divine spells would be added, such as Summon
>   and Command Salamander, Command Hawk, and (perhaps) Truespear.

It may be gauche to correct my own post, but I noticed something after
I sent this in yesterday.  In KOS, Jalk's Book, it says the following
regarding Elmal.

     The deity gave it's initiates blessings upon the earth, good barley
     crops, healthy horses, and winter protection.
                      (King of Sartar, (c) 1992 Greg Stafford, page 196.)

So, for divine spells, it should also (or maybe instead) have Bless
Horse (perhaps from an association with Hippoi or Hyalor
Horsebreaker), Earthwarm (as the Lodril spell), and possibly the Yelm
spell Sunripen (perhaps only effective for barley).  Bless Crops or
such sounds more like an Ernalda spell, but it is the one She offers
Yelmalio, so that may suit.

-- 
Boris Mikey, aka        |"Here the ways of men part: if you wish to strive
Maurice Beyke           | for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if
mabeyke@ingr.com        | you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire."
Intergraph doesn't want                                      Nietzsche
  my opinions.

---------------------

From: mace@lum.asd.sgi.com (Rob Mace)
Subject: Bicky Dart War
Message-ID: <9303172222.AA12197@lum.asd.sgi.com>
Date: 17 Mar 93 06:22:43 GMT

Skip if you are not interested in the two Bicky Dart War Campaigns.

carlf@Panix.Com (Carl Fink) writes:
> 
> mace@lum.asd.sgi.com (Rob Mace) writes:
>  
> >In the campaign(Steve Maurer's) in which I play the characters were hired
> >to stop a Dart War in Bicky.  We were not too successful and eventually
> >open hostilities broke out.  I believe that some of the others on this
> >list were involved in a campaign that was also in Bicky at the time and
> >the events from the two sort of cross fertalized with out the knowledge
> >of the players at the time.
>  
>   You were trying to *stop* the Dart War?  We were convinced you were
> *behind* the Dart War!

I told you we did not do a very good job.  Here is the back ground on
what happened in Steve's game.

The PCs were hired in Dragon Pass to stop the Bicky Dart War.  They
were hired by ??? Windbane, a Humakti High Priest who sided with the
Lunars when they first invaded Sartar.  He had been contacted secretly
by the King of Bicky.  The King offered him a True Sword of Humakt(a
sword once wielded by Humakt).  There were rumors that such existed in
the area of Bicky.  Most of Windbane's troops were in Heortland with
the Lunars at the time, so he needed to hire people to do the task.
The PCs were offered everything that Windbane and his temple had if
they could bring back the Sword.

The way the PCs were supposed to stop the Dart War was to eliminate
the assassin groups working in Bicky.  We had a contact in Bicky and
we had to keep it secret that we were really working for the King.  By
the way the King was nominally Orlanthi.

PCs of Note:
 - Juliette, Yelmalion Rune Lady, Heroin of Yelm - She was the leader
   of the group, her followers could use Sun Spear once a day against
   a target that she declares to be an enemy of the Sun.
 - Adraen, Yelmalion Rune Lord.  (My PC)
 - Velia, Rune Lady of Orlanth Adventurous.
 - Rolf, Hero of Humakt (he joined about halfway through)

Important factions in Bicky
 - The King and his house, weak but still in power.
 - House Venta, Lunar Spell Archers School, strong
 - House Yem, The Army, Yanafals and Yelmalions, strong
 - House Galdur, Tax Collectors, moderately strong, most ruthless

We first hired on to investigate the killing of a monk at the Red Moon
Temple.  It eventually turned out to be a group of Storm Bulls in the
area.  They had done the assassination for extra cash and because they
were informed that the target was highly chaotic.  We managed to run
the group out of town, but it was sort of a nominal victory because
some PCs were Orlanthi and felt uncomfortable about it.

Time passed as we investigated the situation further and found out
more about what was going on and the factions involved.  We had no
real luck in identifying other assassin groups.  Eventually we decided
to knock over the Black Magicians Market as that was where most of the
assassins weapons were coming from.

We took a short side trip to the Hill of Gold at this point.  We
wanted to lay low for a little while before the attack.  Juliette also
hired ~100 laborers to be her followers for the attack so as to use
her Sun Spear power.  Adraen went on the Hill of Gold quest hoping to
come back with a Hippogrif ally but instead recovered fire from ZZ and
came back with a primal horse.

The PCs except for Adraen decided they would hide out in the Maze
after the attack.  The Maze is a part of Bicky strongly associated
with the Disorder Rune.  Things do not stay constant in the Maze.
Buildings and streets are constantly being rearranged.  One can not be
tracked by normal or magical means in the Maze so it was a good place
to hide out

Adraen decided he would go to the Hill of Gold.  He was feeling more
and more squeezed between his vow to attempt to stop the Dart War and
obligations to his cult which was getting dragged into the Dart War.
(I had decided to retire him for a while.)

The attack on the market was a success.  However the results were not
quite what we wanted.  We had hoped that denying the assassins their
toys would calm down the situation and give us breathing room.
Instead it just forced the participants in the conflict to go into
open war fare.

One of the factions got a corrupt Lunar magistrate to declare the PCs
outlaws and to issue warrants for our arrests.  House Venta started a
big regimental magic ritual to attack House Yem by Mind Blasting all
members of House Yem.  Only the Yelmalion Hero Hill Climber and those
that were able to mindlink them selves to him were able to keep from
getting Mind Blasted.

Adraen who had gone to the Hill of Gold found out about the warrant
for his arrest.  Not having a place he wanted to go, Adraen decided to
have Yelmalio send him were he was needed.  A ritual was performed to
send Adraen to Yelmalio.  To make a long story short Adraen was sent
to rescue the wives of the Yelmalions that were being held by House
Venta as hostages.  He ended up in the middle of the ritual that House
Venta was performing, destroyed to the focus of the ritual and blew up
himself and all the leadership of House Venta.  (I will give more
details on this when I finish my Hero Quest artical.)

This left house Venta leaderless but with troops.  And House Yem
without troops but with leadership.  So House Galdur started to become
the dominant player.

More warfare broke out between the different factions as they fought
for control.  The PC destroyed a chaos garden that House Galdur was
growing One PC was assassinated.  Lots happened in the Maze that was
not related to the Dart War.  Eventually the PCs contacted the King
and offered direct support.  Greg, an advisor of the King suggested
that we go and get the Sword of Humakt.  To make an even longer story
short, it eventually turned out that there was no Sword of Humakt.
Greg turned out to be Gregrog the Broo Thanatar Hero.  The item in
question was a Tine of the Claw of Gabaji.  Gregrog had been
manipulating things so that the king would release the tine.  The King
was the only person able to release it.  He also did not know it was a
tine.  Arkat's followers after hid and locked up the pieces of Gabaji
after Arkat cut him up and this is where one of the tines was.

As another of the tines has shown up and we know that Gregrog and
others from chaos are attempting to get the parts, the current
campaign has turned into a Hero Quest to attempt to better dispose of
the parts of Gabaji.

I hope that at least some of you found that interesting.  This ended
up a lot longer then I intended.

So Carl, what happened in your game and what were your PCs trying to do?

Rob Mace

---------------------

From: mace@lum.asd.sgi.com (Rob Mace)
Subject: Re: Simplified Monster Descriptions
Message-ID: <9303180208.AA12811@lum.asd.sgi.com>
Date: 17 Mar 93 10:08:10 GMT

Oliver writes:
> Loren, Rob, et. al. - this is a great idea - I'd love to hear
> what people consider the minimal information you need to stat
> out a RQ critter or individual. Here's what I generally use:
> 
> Attack %
> (list deleted)
> Spells
> 
> Any of this strike people as unnecessary, or does there appear to 
> be anything missing?

Looks fine.  The only thing I would add is that what I use is
dependent on what I am writing up, who the PCs are, and the tactics
they use.  Rune Levels need more detail then thugs.  A lot of the
things can also be determined on the fly if and when you need them.

I consider the minimum needed is something like:

 4 Moderate Orlanthi initiates, Drunk.
 1 Moderate Storm Bull Initiate, Very Drunk.

This is an example from an encounter that happened at in a game I ran
at DunDraCon.  This was all I determined about the encounter before it
started.  The PCs were guards trying to keep order in a town.  The PCs
eventually subdued them.  By the end I had determined that the Storm
Bull had an 18 pow and wielded an axe, and the leader of the Orlanthi
had a 15 pow.  Nothing else became relevant.

If hand to hand combat had broken out then I would have given the
leader of the Orlanthi 65-85% attack and the others at 55-75%.  Minus
some amount being drunk. etc.

The only things I really feel the need to know before hand are those
things I plan to use as plot elements and those things that would
disrupt the flow to determine it on the fly.

What disrupts the flow probably depends on how long you have been
playing RQ.

Rob Mace

---------------------

From: mace@lum.asd.sgi.com (Rob Mace)
Subject: Re: Spirit Magic and Spirit Combat Changes
Message-ID: <9303180236.AA12894@lum.asd.sgi.com>
Date: 17 Mar 93 10:36:37 GMT

Tim Leask writes:
> I don't know what others feel on the subject, but I never liked the changes
> to spirits that occurred between RQII and RQIII. The concept of spell spirits,
> intellect spirits, power spirits and magic spirits seemed extremely contrived
> game mechanic devices.

I agree.  I never liked the changes, and for the same reason.

> What I propose for RQ4 is something half way bewteen
> (Tim's ideas which I liked a lot deleted.)
>
> Alterations, suggestions, criticisms ?

I presume from what you said that only one binding or plundering
attempt can be made per spirit.  If this is not the case then everyone
would just keep fighting the spirit until they had bound it fully or
stolen everything from it.  Since the spirit is already at 0 there is
no risk to the binder/plunderer continuing the fight.

My question is, what is the Gloranthan physics that restricts one to
only one attempt?

Here is one thought.  When s spirit is reduced to 0 pow its hold on
the world and the worlds hold on it is reduced.  The
binding/plundering is done at the same momemt that the spirit is
reduced to zero pow.  Any delay and the spirit can no longer be
interacted with.  For binding one could still unbind the spirit when
it reached 1 pow and beat it up again.  Making the binding cost
something could solve this.

Also since spirits have to be reduced to 0 pow to bound/plundered why
do they not just run away when they get low on pow?

Rob Mace

---------------------

From: MAB@SAVAX750.RUTHERFORD.AC.UK (Mystic Musk Ox)
Subject: RE: The RuneQuest Daily, Wed, 17 Mar 1993
Message-ID: <9303181015.AA10145@Sun.COM>
Date: 18 Mar 93 09:12:00 GMT

----------------------------------------------------------------------
>Simplified Monster Descriptions

>Loren, Rob, et. al. - this is a great idea - I'd love to hear
>what people consider the minimal information you need to stat
>out a RQ critter or individual.
>
> etc, etc

The main difficulty I've always found is not so much generating the
NPC's in the first place, as with a bit of practise you know how tough
you want the opposition (and can just write down some numbers), but
actually keeping track of their condition if there is a reasonable
number of them. This tends to be due to hit location systems I think -
running a scrap with 6 PC's, 10 broo, a shaman and his pet chaos goat
is a lot of bookkeeping. Having said that, I *like* the RQ hit
location system as it gives a good feel to the game.  I have run a lot
of Stormbringer, which just uses HP overall, with a classification of
Light Wound, Serious Wound, Mortal Wound and Death, that has proved to
be a good fast system, which feels right, but also much easier to keep
track of what is happening.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Spirit Magic and Spirit Combat Changes.

>I don't know what others feel on the subject, but I never liked the changes
>to spirits that occurred between RQII and RQIII. The concept of spell spirits,
>intellect spirits, power spirits and magic spirits seemed extremely contrived
>game mechanic devices. What I propose for RQ4 is something half way bewteen
>the two systems which is cosistent and far less contrived than RQ3.
>
> etc,etc

I like this idea, it is a nice 'unified field theory' which seems to
tie everything together rather well.

> If the roll is a success, the spirit has one of its aspects bound,
> if the roll is a special success two of it's aspects are bound...

Would any difficulties/problems/interesting things occur if 2 people
bind different/aspects of the same spirit? I.e. Does the binding
PHYSICALLY hold the spirit to the binding object, or just maintain
some connection with it to draw upon its abilities? The latter seems
to fit in better with my view of the spirit plane. Perhaps in this way
people could be found via the spirit plane if you know the
spirits/aspects bound by that person.

> A special success enables the plunderer to steal a skill from the spirit
> or to steal two spells.

What does stealing a skill entail? I can't remember if GoG etc
explains this.

> A critical success enables the plunderer to steal 1D3 POW directly from
> the spirit and add it to their own.

Is this in addition to getting a POW tick? Do species maximums still
apply (I guess so).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Buckley			Don't let THEM immanetise the eschaton
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------

From: staats@MIT.EDU (Richard C. Staats)
Subject: Re: The RuneQuest Daily, Wed, 17 Mar 1993
Message-ID: <9303181459.AA27451@MIT.EDU>
Date: 18 Mar 93 14:59:38 GMT

Greetings!

I read some entries on the net a few weeks back which indicated that
there were a non-trivial number of campaigns running where it was not
only possible but actually common to cast Poison with an intensity of
30.  I thought the intensity+duration+range of all combined spells had
to be less than or equal to the caster's free INT.  (This puts a large
emphasis on enchanting staves with spell matrices, etc.)

        How do folks handle this?

        In service,

        Rich