>From all of this BF must have been quite a hero - the BF cult
>seems to have better divine magic than any thief cult except Lanbril.
Black Fang is _not_ worshipped by the Cult that bears his name according to RQII, he is merely an intermediary for some unknown god. As for Sandy's list of Divine Magic known by the Cult, it seems a bit over the top to assume they could be all gotten at a temple of Black Fang. I think the situation is that each ring in the Black Fang Cult knows a different Runespell for which the Shaman works fulltime. A person from one ring can learn a spell from another but his ring must compensate the other ring with some deed, a muleload of Hazia etc. Each Shaman is supposedly equal but the one that maintains the secrets of Shattering is generally the strongest for obvious reasons. The system rarely breaks down as each shaman knows how dependant they are on the other shamans.
> Speaking of which, anyone done a 3rd edition writeup of Lanbril? The
>RQ2 version had way too many new spells and skills, but maybe they are
>simply the range available from the whole cult, a small subset of which will
>be available in any given temple. I have given my Lanbril PC Divination
>Block, but I am not sure about their other spells.
I would dump all the silly gizmos and alchemy schtick for starters. Ditto for the thieves cant. As for the spells, I would make it that each ring knows a different runespell as per the black fang example above. I make the Lanbril cultists able to know some modest sorcery like Phantom Vision and/or Stupefy instead of the spirit spells listed. Any cultist would rarely progress beyond the student stage. (For those who complain that sorcery rarely arises in a barbarian culture whereas Lanbril is (supposedly) a member of the Orlanthi pantheon, thieves and thief gods are viable only in an urban environment.
Nick Brooke:
>(NB: Bees, caste-bound creatures of Darkness making the golden food of
>Light, are probably VERY important to some Carmanian heresy: all these
>repititions make it practically essential! Anyone got any ideas?)
Perhaps they could turn the honey into mead and drink it at least once a week as a sort of sacrament to bring their Light and Dark Natures into equilibrium? Honeycomb wafers for the bread? Beeswax for the candles?
Erik Sieurin:
>Regarding turning Gloranthan "reality" into game stats: Why do
>Aldryami have such high INT? I could think about "wisdom of the
>ancient trees" etc, but isn't that covered by POW=intuition? (which
>is high, and rightly so). Is it a remnant of the general Other Game
>idea that Elves Are Better?
Presumably to represent their affinity with Spirit Magic; they can know more because they are more in tune with the Spirit World and can appreciate its nature more readily. This affinity can be warped to learn sorcery (obligatory hiss!) or non-adryami spirit magic (like fireblade) but an Elf would have to cut himself off from Aldrya to do so.
If truth be told, this is an ad hoc rationalization. I suspect that Elves got a high INT as a result of Tolkienism and it stuck mainly because nobody could see a better way for making Elves (who have low STR, SIZ etc) balanced.
Erik ponders on how Krarsht might affect the Mostali:
>Chaos dwarves (horrible Chaos Workshop flashbacks, aaarghh!)?
The Decamony knows that Chaos Dwarves are more properly known as the Vegetarian Heretics and have nothing to do with Krarsht. As well as adopting the manifestly Chaotic principle of Growth, I have it on Good Authority that they do not wear metal armour but craft their armour out of plants like gorse to such an extent that thorns stick out of it at various points, giving rise to the infamous 'Chaos Spikey Bits'.
Erik then ponders on solutions the mostali might use to combat Krarsht:
>Are
>their special techniques developed by the Iron Caste to handle the
>problem? Krashtkid Exterminator, new Dwarven occupation?
One normally doesn't need a special breed of Iron Dwarves IMO. All that has to be done when a tunnel is discovered is to use it as a drain to take away all the unneeded Hot Toxic Waste from the Mostali Factories.
David Dunham:
>At least, this is
>the tack I plan to take in Naskorion, which I believe has an Aeolian
>Heresy. Aeolians don't deny the Invisible God any more than a Frank who
>worships St Martin denies the Christian God. They just get more miracles
>from St Martin. (I don't think that the Naskori worship St Orlanth, tho
>other Aeolians might.)
The only problem I have with this is that the Aeolian Church seems to be a Holy Country faith rather than a universal thing which springs up whenever Orlanthi meet Malkioni. I would call the Naskorian faith, the Church of Naskorian (leaving out any mention of Aeolus) and have it labelled a Stygian Faith by 'objective' outsiders. This is apt, IMO, as the Duke worships Argan Argar, sponsors the temple of Zorakarkat, is engaged in serious hanky-panky with the trolls of Halikiv _and_ seeks to ressurect the Dark Empire of Stygia! Given this record, I think the Church of Naskorian is more likely to be incorporating trollish gods rather than the storm gods of the Upland Vustrians (save for Urain and a few other gods like him).
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