I did initially start this message by describing the basics of temple founding, but Peter Metcalfe described it so succinctly and correctly that I'll just refer to his description.
And founding a temple is much like founding a shrine except with a whole bunch more people.
Remember, from a game mechanics point of view, a temple is nothing more than some (possibly temporarily) sanctified ground and a worship service. And I'm not sure about the sanctified ground. An Issaries Market, for example, works perfectly well as a temple.
Krarsht is an exception - the building a temple procedure also supplies the physical construction, and most of the congregation (Krarshtkids count as congregation, one reason the Krarsht cult can have access to so much nifty magic with a small human congregation).
And the Temples of the Reaching Moon are also an exception - they are far more than just temples. The Temple function is minor compared to their primary function of maintaining the Glowline, which I assume involves special temple spirits, probably non-stop rituals, incredibly complex rituals of foundation, etc.
Fighting hoplites
>What write-up were you working from here? The only detailed stats I have
>here are the ones for the Lunar garrison units in the Cradle scenario in
>'Big Rubble', and the thing about those is that they only describe the rank
>and file, not the NCOs and still less the (possibly rune-level) officers.
>
From TOTRM (sorry, can't remember issue number offhand - around #11 or #12). Includes full cult writeup and sample stats for Hoplites and rune level.
>In my game your Sword would chew his way through the first couple of ranks
>without much difficulty, but around then he'd discover that the file leaders
>and file closers have a selection of useful spells, allowing them to combine
>magical efforts on a single target. By the time his Truesword, Bladesharp,
>and Protection spells have gone down to a Dispel Magic 4 each he won't be
>finding the going so easy.
The Sword wasn't the only Rune level in that particular group, though... the rest of the file was busy themselves. And I don't believe the Granite Phalanx were equipped with too much Dispel Magic in the writeup. Afterall, you don't equip and train your troops on the basis that they'll be fighting rune levels rather than ordinary troops regularly, you equip them on the basis that your rune levels will stop theirs leaving your troops free to fight theirs (they didn't). Being able to attack the phalanx directly without having to wade through missile fire, be attacked from the flank, stopped by their roving rune lords, etc. was the result of an extremely good Battle role (using a RQised variant of the Pendragon mass battle system.
Cheers
David
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