petsku koo asks:
>what kind of creatures are vampires in glorantha. In cults of terrer
>there is some rules and the write up of Vivamort and it says that they use
>runemagic but Lords of terror says that they are sorcerers what is the
>truth and do they (vampires) have some supernatural abilities. what about
>making them (meening the sorcery spell create vampire).
>if someone knows something please tell.
This very question struck me when I was describing the ancient vampire who dwells in the Old Sun Dome temple in SUN COUNTY (p.115). This was before LORDS OF TERROR muddied the waters; all I had to go on was the conflicting information in RQ2's CULTS OF TERROR and the de-Gloranthised RQ3 creatures book.
The naff vampire illustration in the RQ3 book looked too much like Bela Lugosi for my taste, so I decided to stick with the RQ2 CoT model, in which they suck POW and divine spells from their victims.
However, in my SUN COUNTY Errata I also noted the then currently prevailing theory, which was that vampires probably have their own unique magic similar to sorcery but requires POW (blood sacrifice) from their victims to work. A new "vampire" supplement was then in the pipeline ("The Tower of Night"), which I assumed was going to clear everything up. Given the somewhat perfunctory information in LORDS OF TERROR, my suggestion is that in the absence of anything to supercede it, go back to the write-up in CULTS OF TERROR and use it when you want vampires in your gaming.
Now, I actually think there are a variety of beings in Glorantha that could be described as "vampires", and that all the magic traditions (spirit, divine, sorcery) have different ways of achieving such "undead" status. I doubt if all vampires worship Vivamort, or have even ever heard of him. For example, some vampires in the west are the results of failed/semi-successful (depending on your PoV) attempts to emulate the immortality of the Brithini. And what are the higher echelons of the Cult of Immortality but vampires, sucking out the "youth" of their younger disciples?
Arthur from Vienna (Austria) asks:
>2. Is the reprint worth buying even if one has all of the lately published
>RQ3 books such as "River of Cradles", "Sun County", "Shadows on the
>Borderland" and "Strangers in Prax"?
While some material from the original PAVIS & BIG RUBBLE packs was featured in SUN COUNTY and RIVER OF CRADLES, the main thing you'll miss out on if you don't get the Pavis & Big Rubble reprint are the excellent scenarios. They are a pretty diverse bunch, ranging from "Balastor's Barracks" and "Puzzle Canal" (fairly standard dungeon crawls, but with lots of Gloranthan flavour) through to "The Cradle" (a true epic, something I regret I never got a chance to play myself). They could quite literally keep your players entertained for months and months.
The only scenario I'm not too keen on is "Krang's Table", which seems to be purposely designed to kill off an player character group who attempts it. I've never played it, so maybe I've read it wrong?
Cheers,
MOB
Email me : mrmob_at_ozemail.com.au
MOB's Home Page: http://www.ozemail.com.au/~mrmob/index.html
MOB's Glorantha Page: http://www.ozemail.com.au/~mrmob/glorindex.html
DOB Footy Scrapbook: http://www.ozemail.com.au/~mrmob/dobfootycard.html
------------------------------
Powered by hypermail