From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer)
To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest)
Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily)
Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Wed, 01 Dec 1993, part 2
Message-ID:
Precedence: junk
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From: carlf@panix.com (Carl Fink)
Subject: bits 'n' pieces
Message-ID: <199311301854.AA02016@panix.com>
Date: 30 Nov 93 08:54:41 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2500
All this stuff about Snodal's glimpse of the future map of Genertela:
in my game, what he found was Zzabur's *plans* for Genertela, not some
sort of prophecy. How else would he know who was going to cause this,
and how?
fkiesche3@aol.com writes:
>I'm looking for advice on how to start this whole shebang. What is
>the best way to introduce the massive amounts of information
>available (background, foreground, social, religion, etc.). How
>much of the grand scheme (upcoming Hero Wars, etc.) should the
>players (as, most likely, inhabitants of the small village to start)
>be aware of?
Have you seen the _Vikings_ pack? In some ways it's the best RPG
supplement for starting new players I've ever read. Note that the Ygg's
Isles were added to Glorantha specifically to let people play the
Vikings scenarios.
As for background -- most starting characters will know effectively
nothing about the world's history, or nations that don't neighbor their
own. Say you're starting in Pavis, for example -- Pavis is unusually
cosmopolitan for a Gloranthan city, but a Pavic shopkeeper would know
a lot about the Hero Pavis, and the history of that city. He would
know a bit about Praxian nomads -- at least the names of all the tribes.
Because of Dorasar's founding of the city, he would know something about
Sartar and Dragon Pass, say a one-page summary. And that's it. He would
know that more distant lands exist, but while he could recognize a
Lunar, a Kralori, and a Ralian, and tell you which direction their lands
lie in, that would be about all.
A person interested in history (or a Priest or High Initiate of Pavis)
would know something about the EWF, which spawned Pavis.
J.Ditton@vme.glasgow.ac.uk writes in part:
>RE: boggles
>I have never heard of these before. I am intrigued. Are these the same
>as "bogey men"? ie "Be good child of the Boggles will get you?". Do
>they only appear in a few places and in large numbers or are they
>always around like a bad smell, breaking eggs and losing things etc..
As Sandy has said, the name comes from the same root as "bogey man",
but they aren't scary monsters like Ogres. They're the spawn of the
primordial trickster. Aside from that, it's hard to generalize, because
they are quite different from each other. Rather than saying that
the Boggles will get someone, people blame any small mishaps on Boggles,
i.e. spoiled milk, misplaced tools.
In fact, the great majority of the Boggles were destroyed resisting
the incursion of Chaos during the Godtime.
>RE: Catseye
>This sounds like a Godlearner name. Why would any Yelmalion want to
>associate himself with a cat. Wouldn't Hawkeye be better?
Well, the thing is, hawks don't see well at night. How about Owlsight?
brandon@caldonia.nlm.nih.gov (Brandon Brylawski) writes:
> Why are you assuming that the air gets thinner as you climb higher?....
Exactly. Glorantha isn't Earth.
markg@engrg.uwo.ca (Mark Gagnon) writes:
>Subject: Receiving Divine Magic from "human sacrifice"
>I'm curious if anyone has considered the implications of sacrifice:
>followers of the non-chaotic deities receive spells through sacrifice
>of personal life force [POW]; I have read nothing indicating that
>chaotic and evil deities would grant divine magic through the sacrifice
>of a non-worshipper's life (and POW). Any comments on this idea? I
>would think that a chaotic or evil deity would demand that sort of
>sacrifice...
I've done that in a non-Gloranthan game. There is one such effect
in _GOG_, although I can't remember which deity it is that grants the
arrival of one chaos monster, its strength dependent on the power of
the sacrifice.
GRAEME@SPVA.PHYSICS.IMPERIAL.AC.UK (Graeme Willoughby) writes in part:
>If, as was discussed here recently, a SIZ increase of 10 points (or
>so) means a doubling of volume, then a bit of maths
>[2^((SIZ-15)/10)) = 100 million] gives a SIZ of something in the
>region of 275, which can round up to 300 in case my initial
>assumptions were a bit off.
Well, in RuneQuest 4 SIZ is linear, rather than exponential. Go
with the higher figure for HP.
>So continuing the thread about slaying "unslayable" beasties such
>as the Bat, can people give me some good ideas on how to turn this
>into an ex-gorp? Or at least do enough damage to drive it off? (
>I'd guess about 1/10 of it's hit points in damage will make it pause).
Well, remember that gorp have no INT -- doing damage to it might
have no effect at all, until it dies.
>I have several ideas already, gratuitous use of salamanders seemed
>reasonable, as did draining its magic points enough for Sever
>Spirit to be useful (with a tame vampire or a *huge* spirit).
>Fire arrows are quite good but you'd need *many* of them.
A vampire would have to overcome it MP to affect it, too. If the
vamp is tough enough to do that, you probably can't make it do what
you want.
Instead of trying to get one huge spirit, I'd be more inclined to
get several shamans and priests together and unleash hundreds or
thousands of small spirits. Sure, each one of them would have to roll
01 to affect the thing -- but they could try for a long time, and
eventually they'll wear it down. (Then again, once it's weakened you
could have a shaman possess it and send it against the nation of your
choice. Now *that* would bother the Lunar Empire.)
You could go to Caladraland and request the aid of the Lodrili.
I think that if Lodril could wall off Pamaltela, he can certainly
seal a chaos-spawn into Slimerock with a wall of volcanoes.
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From: watson@computing-science.aberdeen.ac.uk (Colin Watson)
Subject: Interesting Times
Message-ID: <9311301810.AA15922@condor>
Date: 30 Nov 93 18:10:40 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2501
____________
Geoff Gunner wrote:
>As Gods-time is at right angles to temporal reality, there's a method of time
>travel for you: Step into gods-time, move a short distance and come back out.
>Hey presto, you've travelled in time.
Sounds simple, but I bet it ain't:
If you imagine things spatially rather than temporally it's easier to
visualise (we're used to multiple spatial dimensions after all).
RealTime/GodTime can be viewed as spatial vectors which are perpendicular
like the X & Y axes of a graph.
Assume the X direction is RealTime; Y is GodTime.
Now, no matter how far you travel in the Y direction, your X coordinate
remains unaffected.
Hence stepping into GodTime is not, in itself, a method of Time travel with
respect to RealTime.
Normally when you return from GodTime you will re-enter RealTime at the
same point that you left (or thereabouts).
However...
Assuming the mechanism which transports you into GodTime allows you to enter
at *any point* in GodTime (I assume that the nuances of HeroQuesting
ceremonies determine this), then there might be scope for Time travel:
in that if you perform *another* HeroQuest-like ceremony from the GodTime
to transport you into RealTime then you *might* be able to pick-and-choose
your re-entry point in RealTime.
On completion of your Quest you would return to GodTime again, and thence
back to where you left RealTime originally.
Of course, there's nothing to say that a second HeroQuest from GodTime
will end up back in Gloranthan RealTime. ie. There might be more than
two spacial dimensions...
Maybe that's what happened to Pharaoh (and many of the GodLearners perhaps)
wandering around in a Time which is neither RealTime nor GodTime.
Interesting Times indeed.
______________
Sandy Petersen wrote:
>Colin Watson correctly points out that we are all traveling forwards
>in time naturally. I was referring, of course, to big jumps in time,
>which are only possible by going into the Past.
The question here is: How big is a "big jump"?
I guess the answer is: big enough so it won't screw up your campaign. So long
as the players can't exploit the paradoxical benefits of Time Travel then
there isn't a problem.
[ Game-wise, I don't have a problem with jumps in either direction. Jumping
forwards is less paradoxical; but jumping backwards might be easier to GM
'cos we've a better idea of Glorantha's past than the future :-) ]
>The Gods live in a Godtime which is the universe beyond time. In a
>sense, it is the universe as it would be if it were still the
>Godtime. They are pre-time, as it were.
Surely even GodTime must have some sort of subjective time, otherwise
nothing could ever happen there. I think the Time generated as a result of
the Compromise is simply a separate temporal dimension which mortals inhabit
to play out the will of the Gods.
>Things can happen to change
>the Godtime, whereupon the Godtime is as if it had always been that
>way (like the creation of the Red Moon's tower on the Godplane --
>this is new, but now has always been there).
As I understand it this is the basis for all things mythomagical in Glorantha.
By changing events early in GodTime you can change things for all time.
Similarly I imagine that you can change events early in RealTime (ie. Mortal
Time) which change things for all time. In Glorantha the reversal of
cause->effect is not paradoxical; in fact it's a fundemental feature of
the way things work.
___
CW.
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From: malcolm109@aol.com
Subject: Re: Topics for Sandy
Message-ID: <9311301700.tn03687@aol.com>
Date: 30 Nov 93 22:00:36 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2502
Sandy,
I've really enjoyed your articles on the various tribes of Prax. I'd like to
see more information on the various oases. I have no idea what these places
are like except for guesses I'm made based on their names.
Thanks
Malcolm
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From: rune@ace.com (Rune)
Subject: Runic Magic, Beginning RQ
Message-ID: <9312010003.0.UUL1.3#25274@ace.com>
Date: 1 Dec 93 05:03:54 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2503
I'd like to follow up on a couple of recent threads;
unfortunately, since catastrophic Net-access changes have forced me to
subscribe to the Daily from this (very accident-prone) system, I can't
reply directly. I only hope that this gets through at all!
1) Runic Magic
There were some inquiries about Runic magic systems. In
particular, someone asked about a system resembling or based upon _Ars
Magica_.
I did write a large Runic magic system quite some time ago, which
appeared here (or maybe it was in a regular monthly Digest). However,
that system was *not* based on Ars Magica. Another system which came out
shortly afterword (I think) *was* based on that system, and did have
several points in common with my own.
If anyone wants a copy of my system, I can attempt to send it
from here -- though I'm not sure that this system will be up to the
task, and in any case the system didn't spark much interest the first
time around.
2) Starting Out With RQ
In response to a request for information about introducing new
players to Glorantha: To the best of my recollection, the things that
most interested me about RQ when I first started playing was that
everyone got magic, and the cults. I can remember the gleeful older
players yelling "WAHA!" to this day. 8^>}
Beyond that, I just picked up Glorantha over time. A process of
osmosis, I guess.
As it happens, I've been working (intermittantly) on a large
campaign -- or maybe it would be better to call it a campaign framework
-- designed to bring groups of disparate characters together and get
them involved in Glorantha. Parts of it may eventually surface in
several publications (a crude form has already appeared in _The Wild
Hunt_ APA). Right now I have it down to a detailed five-page outline. If
whoever posted the request for info about introducing characters to
Glorantha wants to drop me a line, I'll email it to them.
3) It's Alive?
Does anyone know the status of RQ with Avalon Hill these days?
Apparently they're announcing nothing but the all-in-one softcover
edition. I find it ominous that Sandy Petersen's Prax material wasn't
snapped up by AH...
Along those lines, here's an idea: if the Avalon Hill -- Chaosium
agreement forbids Chaosium or third party companies to publish RQ
material, why not start publishing it on the Net? I'm not talking about
the fine but disorgranized material that currently is being published
here. What I'd like to see is organized material, entire sourcebooks if
you will, available for FTP from some central site. True, you couldn't
charge for this -- but we seem to have here a unique opportunity to do
something unique in roleplaying. It's quite possible that there has
never been a larger or more-qualified group of fans of an RPG system in
regular contact with each other. Perhaps under the auspices of the Daily
huge quantities of organized, quality RQ material could be generated.
This might be the cutting edge of gaming -- a system in which the
*majority* of new material is generated and distributed via the Net!
Should the time come when AH or some other company had the resources to
publish RQ material on paper, the Net material would be a ready supply.
Of course, it's a pity that those without Net access would be cut
off from this process. But I can't think of any way around that problem,
and it seems that this might be the only way for RQ to survive at all.
-->Pete
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Maranci Malden, Massachusetts
rune@ace.com or rune@trystero.com or pete@slough.mit.edu
If you can't reach me at one address, try another -- they all have
problems.
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From: jjm@zycor.lgc.com (johnjmedway)
Subject: rq con travel
Message-ID: <9312010549.AA22822@hp0.zycor.lgc.com>
Date: 1 Dec 93 05:49:17 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2504
it may be a bit early to ask this, but ...
Anybody in the central Texas area who doesn't want to drop $440 for
plane tickets, and who might want to go in together on a van?
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