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Date: Thu, 20 May 93 17:15:06 +0200
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Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Thu, 20 May 1993, part 5
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The RuneQuest Daily and RuneQuest Digest deal with the subjects of
Avalon Hill's RPG and Greg Stafford's world of Glorantha.

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From: gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au (Graeme Lindsell)
Subject: Humakt + Rune Magic For Initiates
Message-ID: <9305190942.AA11347@cscgpo.anu.edu.au>
Date: 19 May 93 13:49:00 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 811

>From: mabeyke@batman.b11.ingr.com (boris)
>  100270.337@CompuServe.COM (Nick Brooke) wrote:
>> Subject: Jottings
>> 
>> The Sword would seem to be the most common 
>> Orlanthi image of Humakt, and was wielded by Orlanth, whereas the 
>> Westerners are always trying to make Things into People as part of their 
>> de-mythologising Euhemerising "rationalisation" of the universe.  I'd have 
>> thought "Humct the Soldier" (*not* as horrible as described in the 
>> Prosopaedia: this is his followers' version) was the cult brought East by 
>> Arkat, who found there that he could wield the Sword of Orlanth (which may 
>> or may not have been called Humakt before his arrival).  Some clever bugger 
>> (probably a God Learner) then hypothesised that Humakt was Orlanth's 
>> long-lost brother -- and heroquested to make it so.

 Actually the Westerners see an impersonal, "scientific" universe, don't
they? I'd say they'd prefer Death seen as an object rahter than  a person.
I've always seen "Humct" as just a way of putting down barbarian beliefs.

 If Arkat stole Humakt from Orlanth, it'd explain why Orlanth doesn't 
have the death rune. The "clever bugger" may have been Arkat himself:
when Harmast rescued him from Hell, he might have wanted to give his
new allies death powers back, but keep them under his control. If
Arkat had stolen all Orlanth's death powers, the Orlanthi might have
forgotten they ever had them. The structure of the Humakt cult
may be Western only because Arkat was: the "Humct" label may have come 
later.
>
>  Okay, let's run with this.  So, the "original" Death myth (if such has any
>  meaning after God Learner meddling) would be, I guess, as follows.  Eurmal
>  finds Death, as we know.  He shows it to his friend Old Man, who agrees to
>  try it, and then Eurmal uses it on him.  Orlanth sees this, and decides to
>  use this to dry gulch Yelm.  Eurmal steals it back from Orlanth, loses it
>  to High King Elf in a wager, causes him to drop into the hands of Ironman
>  the Mostali, stole it from him and traded it to ZZ.  It passed though many
 etc...

 One thing I like about this retro-fit is that the Trickster is a very early
mythic figure, one that tends to disappear as cultures become civilized.
Trickster being the original finder and user of Death is a myth I could
see a nomad/primitive culture having, then abandoning for a more "civilized"
(ie controllable) figure later on.


>> "The Star Spangled Banner" is surely more appropriate for Sartar.  Not only 

 The hymn "To be a Pilgrim" (is that it's proper name?) can be used by
Humakti almost intact: just replace "to be a pilgrim" with "to be Humakti"
and change "shall life inherit" to "shall death inherit". The first four
line, if I remember them properly, are very Humakti:

 "Who would true valour see
  Let him come hither.
  One here will constant be,
  Come wind, come weather."

 "Onward Humakti Soldiers" might work as well, but I can't remember it
very well.


>  100270.337@CompuServe.COM (Nick Brooke) wrote:
>> 
>> So: Initiates with annual use of Rune magic (renewed at High Holy Days 
>> only).  Acolytes as an in-between step, seasonal Rune magic (renewed at 
>> Holy Days), but only if they're working full-time for the cult that season. 
>>  Rune Lords with seasonal Rune Magic, otherwise unchanged.  Rune Priests 


This has some resemblance to rules I was drawing up for my next campaign
to give easier access to Rune Magic: for each day of worship, an initiate
or higher can make a roll against the lower of his/her Ceremony and Cult 
Lore Skills (the second is knowledge of the practices, myths and beliefs of
a religion. An initiate gets x3 %iles per year gratis in his/her religion. 
Is their any "official" skill like this?).  A success indicates that one
has made  enough contact with the god to get recover some spells.

If an initiate makes an ordinary success, he/she gets back a 1 point spell;
a special get back 2, a critical gets back 3. A spell has to be recovered
entire, not in parts, and a stackable spell is recovered depending on the
way it was 
cast: a Shield 3 is recovered as a 3 point spell.

 The idea is that an initiate can recover 1 point spells reliably, can
probably get a 2 point spell back after a few days, but it may take weeks 
of continuous prayer to recover a 3 point spell.

 In this system a priest gets 3/6/9 points back depending on success, and
can pray _outside_ a temple with the same rewards as an initiate. Like I 
said, the idea was to increase the use and availability of divine magic, 
which I think is underpowered for the price you pay: parts of your soul.
An acolyte would get 2/4/6, but nothing outside a temple. 

 One game balance problem I could see with this is Chalana Arroy priestesses: 
they could cast a Resurrect every two days (it's a ritual, so 1 day to cast, 
one to recover).The increased access to Sever Spirit for Humakti could 
balance this out :-)

 This system is a bit colourless, and also I think it is too powerful. I 
like your system of holy days more, but I don't really like limiting
initiates to once a year. I might use a mix of the above system and your
one: you can only make the rolls on seasonal holy days, a success on the 
high holy day means recovery of all rune magic.

 One byproduct of allowing initiates to regain spells, even with difficulty:
the current requirement of 10 point of rune magic for most priests mean
that initiates hoard spells, only ever casting when they are about to die.
With recovery, an initiate can recover his cast spells easily once he/she
becomes a priest: all the spells he/she has ever bought are counted towards
the 10 point limit.  

From: jjm@zycor.lgc.com (johnjmedway)
>I've seen StormBull types cast all their battle prep spells, with the exception
>of fanaticism, and then stand there to pop off a disruption at a broo, just for
>the power gain roll. The reward is just too great for such trivial behavior.
>(Like Rob Smith mentioned, good roleplaying would avoid this problem, but we 
> don't need RQ for our games unless it helps the game.)

 Indeed, I've done it myself; the rewards are just too great to ignore. It
also make cults that don't get offensive spells very unattractive: you will
never go anywhere without power gain.

 Personally, I'd like an experience point system as well, at least as
an optional rule. Its infuriating to spend a session playing really well
and end up with nothing at the end due to bad dice rolls.


 A comment about Loskalm: we really know very little about it. How
is the King selected, what is the status of women, how does the society
work, what is the High Council, a parliament or a Round Table? It is
one of Greg's original cultures, like the Brithini, but we are told
less about how they actually operate. Most of the other cultures of
Genertela have some Earthly parallel we can look up.

If anyone has any information that isn't out of the Genertela pack I'd
like to know. I can think of three descriptions of Loskalm that all
fit (at least superficially) the published information:

 i)   An idealized Arthurian England, "as it should have been" by 
      G Stafford. Well we know he likes Arthurian legends, and it
      was the earliest part of Glorantha described.

 ii)  An incipient "Islamic jihad". Their religion is so obviously
      better than their neighbours that they should convert them;
      by force if necessary!

 iii) Glorantha's Working Communist Utopia! "Peasants of Fronela
      unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains!" This 
      fits the Duke's son going out to work in the fields, and
      the picture of idyllic peasant life. Glorantha is a 
      fantasy world, it may work!

 Sorry Nick, I can't accept the Nazi concept. I can't see Greg
describing Nazi Germany as a successful idealistic meritocracy.
Fails on all three counts, really. I suspect Greg sees it as a 
mix of i) and ii).

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Graeme Lindsell                      Email: gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au
Research School of Chemistry         Phone: (06) 249 3575
Australian National University       Fax:   (06) 249 0750
---------------------------------------------------------------------


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

From: jason@insignia.co.uk (Jason Proctor)
Subject: Re: 100 SRs / MR
Message-ID: <8741.9305190951@piglet.insignia.co.uk>
Date: 19 May 93 03:03:11 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 812


                       > Has anybody ever tried having 100 SRs rather than just
                       10?
                       Or just start off at SR1 and never start new MRs as
such.
                       Poisons come in after 30 SRs or whatever, people just
add
                       n to their SRs to calculate when they next attack.
Haven't
                       tried it, but sounds a bit more realistic.
                       czeers
                       Jase
                       'course, when I sober up....
 Re>100 SRs / MR