<< 1) If a 10w4 character fights a 5w2 character then the contest is resolved
as 10w2 vs 5 - but does the 10w4 start off with 90 or 50 action points?>>
90
<< 2) In a melee where several characters are fighting each other are action
points returned to base level every time a character switches opponent >>
No. APs reset at the end of a scene, and a scene may contain numerous contests if there are enough opponents around.
<<3) How exactly do you calculate the effect of combat after the contest (i.e whether a character is OK, dazed, hurt, injured, dying or dead) - it's not clear at all which if any of the various tables in the summary apply.>>
Assuming the combat was resolved as an extended contest, you match the number of negative APs that the loser has against the ordinary consequence chart (if I remember its name correctly).
<< 4) What in game terms is the difference between lay members, initiates and
devotees - do they all have access to a deity keyword's affinities but at
different levels?>>
No, they get different abilities. To really explain it, one would have to copy out and post most of the Magic chapter, which would take rather a long time, and annoy Issaries into the bargain. In brief though, worshippers (lay members) get a weak divine intervention-like power, and nothing else. Initiates get their god's affinities, and some bonuses on the Other Side. Devotees get feats (spells) as well as affinities, the option of joining sub-cults and bigger Other Side bonuses. The only real downside to the higher levels of involvement is the amount of time and support your cult will require of you (and you'll likely be a focus for your cult's enemies).
This assumes you're a theist, of course.
<< 5) While I expected HW to have 'pantheon initiation' as the default it is
not at all clear from the character generation rules how this works - if you
start out as a default Orlanth Adventurous initiate (that's what the rules
say - which brings us full circle all the way back to RQ2) and later become
an initiate of Issaries do you still have Orlanth Adv's affinities?>>
There's nothing in principle to stop you being an initiate of more than one deity (though you can't be *devoted* to more than one). However, what the Heortlings call a 'pantheon initiate' is actually a 'worshipper' in HW rules terms, i.e. a lay member of either Orlanth or Ernalda, as appropriate. In Heortling society, most people go on to become initiates, thus its the default (and worshipper powers are crap, and not much use for PCs, anyway) so in that sense, its the default. However, most Dara Happan peasants, for example, will just be a worshipper of Lodril or Oria, not an initiate in the rules sense.
<< 6)What scenarios are going to be supplied with the box? >>
I can't answer that one, although it could be the ones from the GTA website.
<<and what about getting scenarios from the various playtests and demo's (or for that matter new ones and conversions of old classics like Apple Lane) up on Glorantha.com as a way to keep interest going in what from Martin's post a longish gap between the HW release and that of Sartar Rising/Thunder Rebels/She Guards Us>>
I gather this sort of thing is being planned.
<< As a general comment the one thing that I do miss in these rules is any
element of random character generation - HW looks like it will be great if
you either know at the start exactly what your character is going to look
like and can do (which genuine Gloranthan neophytes on the whole won't)or if
you're happy playing one of a limited number of archetypes but I don't think
I'm alone in seeing the way an interesting new character can spring up fully
fleshed out of a few random dice rolls as one of the really magical elements
of RuneQuest and Pendragon. >>
A fair criticism (as it happens, I don't like random character generation, but I certainly can see why someone might).
<< However I suppose HW is flexible enough to allow us to set up random
ability generation tables and to allow us to roll starting ability levels
with 2d6+6 if that's what we want to do...>>
It'd require a lot of work, IMO, but it ought to be doable, and perhaps suitable for publication in one of the zines, or even at the Issaries website?
Forward the glorious Red Army!
Trotsky
End of The Glorantha Digest V7 #492
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