Bell Digest v930204

Date: Thu, 4 Feb 93 17:14:47 +0100
From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Digest Subscriptions)
To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest)
Subject: The RuneQuest Daily, Thu, 04 Feb 1993

This is an semi-automated digest, sent out once per day (if any
messages are pending).  Replies will be included in the next issue
automatically.

Selected articles may also appear in a regular Digest.  If you 
want to submit articles to the Digest only,  contact the editor at
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--
Send Submissions to: 		    
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The RuneQuest Daily is a spin-off of the RuneQuest Digest and deals
with the subjects of Avalon Hill's RPG and Greg Stafford's world of
Glorantha.  			 Maintainer: Henk.Langeveld@Sun.COM

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From: g.hoyle@genie.geis.com
Subject: THE BLOCK
Message-ID: <9302031758.AA12143@relay1.geis.com>
Date: 3 Feb 93 16:47:00 GMT

The Block, in Prax, is composed of Truestone. Truestone has the
property of compelling those who touch it to cast all the rune magic
they know into the stone, after which it becomes "set" and can no
longer accept new magic.  If the Block is "blank" (contains no magic),
how has it avoided becoming set? If it's set, what and how many spells
does it contain?

--Guy (Mulborth) Hoyle

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From: STEVEG@ARC.UG.EDS.COM (Entropy needs no maintenance)
Subject: Sea GoSea Gods
Message-ID: <01GU9SIWY3S2001BWR@UG.EDS.COM>
Date: 2 Feb 93 20:14:19 GMT


The following is summarised from Wyrms Footnotes 8, Gods & Godesses of
Glorantha, meeting a request posted in RQdigest v8 #5

Zaramaka, the primal waters, begat Framanthe, goddess of the deep
				   Sramake, Primal Ocean, One Water
				&  Daliath, Keeper of the deep, lord of wisdom

		=		=		=		=

Framanthe and Sramak begat the Sea of Terror, the Western Ocean and
the Homeward ocean; and from these are descended all seas, bays rivers
and so forth.

		=		=		=		=

Sramak and Daliath begat Heler (rain), Triolina, and Nelat (the Purifier)
Triolina and Nelat begat Mirintha (sea nymph)
Triolina and Heler begat King Undine
Triolina and Flamal begat Murthdrya
Triolina and Hykim begat Tholaina, Queen of beasts
Triolina and Grandfather Mortal begat Phargon

Mirintha and King Undine begat the water nymphs
King Undine gave rise to Island Gulper, Ship Beater and Tidal wave
Tidal Wave gave rise to Sog, and thence the Undines

Murthdrya gave rise to the Sea elves

Mirintha and Phargon to the Mer tribes.  Of this descent, Waertag was
begotten by Malkion upon a Trioline spirit.

Tholaina gave rise to all manner of sea beats with the elemental gods.

		=		=		=		=

Daliath and Framanthe begat Manthi, Natea and Magasta 

Manthi and Natea begat Sshorg, Prince of the Sea of terror, from whom
are descended Dew maid and Fog Boy

Manthi and Natea begat Banthe, Prince of Western Ocean, from whose line
Rainbow girl arises.

Manthi and Natea begat Lorian, Celestial Waters, who in turn gave rise to
Lorian, the Fiery Waters.

Magasta mated with a darkness demon to produce Wachaza, and with
Brastalos to create the waterspouts.

		=		=		=		=

The lineage of the Blue Moon, the once mortal Dormal, and other water
deities such as Nyanka do not seem to connect with the above.

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From: MILLERL@WILMA.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU (Loren J. Miller)
Subject: Helmets
Message-ID: <9302031819.AA19241@noc1.dccs.upenn.edu>
Date: 3 Feb 93 17:15:00 GMT

For the helmet question, I don't think it should reduce your fighting
skills, but I agree it should hurt perception skills, even for Trolls
who use darksense and Dwarfs who use their remote sense.

So should it put a cap on skill or penalize skill or penalize your
roll?  RQ4 adds the concept of a penalty to your roll which makes it
easier to fumble a skill, in addition to the normal skill penalty
which reduces your chance of success.

How about partial and full helmets halving perception skills? That's a
good, clean, easy to use ruling. Actually, full helms should probably
quarter perception skills. It works for me. If a character doesn't
take off a helmet when trying to scan or search they don't really want
to find anything.

And for armor and stealth, how about adding half the ENC of metal
armor to your roll when trying to sneak? Rolls of 100+ are always
fumbles.  This makes it much easier to suddenly clank or jingle that
armor when you're trying to sneak around. It also makes it nearly
impossible to get special or critical successes. A simple failure to
sneak just means that made SOME noise. A fumble means you made a LOT
of noise, and even a deaf man tripping on ten kinds of psychedelics
would hear something and recognise something was up. IMHO, this is the
way armor should interact with the sneak skill.

whoah,
+++++++++++++++++++++++23
Loren Miller                           internet: MILLERL@wharton.upenn.edu
Mediocrity is a hand rail.                         -- Baron de Montesquieu

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From: carlf@Panix.Com (Carl Fink)
Subject: Runequest
Message-ID: <199302032112.AA14808@sun.Panix.Com>
Date: 3 Feb 93 11:12:49 GMT

  Comments with ">" are by Alex, with ">>" by me.
 
>> Well, remember that good PC shamans under RQ3 can easily defeat Monrogh!
 
>Since shaman can't become Y. initiates, this is only a factor for
>an Illuminated Yelmalion Shaman, a thought too horrible to contemplate.  :-)
 
I was thinking more of a friendly (to the apostate) shaman intervening
and forcing Monrogh to retreat.  In any case, the initiate who says
"Fire!" would presumably run to a priest and be assigned penance
before Monrogh attacks.
 
>That's pretty weird.  Being named after a God seems i) improbable;
>ii) blasphemous; iii) problematic if only his name survives to the
>present, and no other knowledge; and iv) confusing.  Why not just
>rename the Hero?
 
You aren't familiar with the common Spanish name Jesus?  I think that
deals with i and ii.  As for iv, it only confuses Glorantha experts
like yourself.
 
Carl

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From: eco0kkn@cabell.vcu.edu (Kirsten K. Niemann)
Subject: Re: Alex's points
Message-ID: <9302032245.AA18219@cabell.vcu.edu>
Date: 3 Feb 93 22:45:04 GMT

Alex:
I seem to remembet that around 0.5% of the population is a reasonable
proportion of folks who spend their time doing religion. After all, in
Glorantha, religion has a practical use!
 
This would be the total number of cult officials who don't spend their
time doing mundane work, so it includes altar boys, incense makers,
guards, temple slaves, as well as the priests and what not.
 
RE: Yamsur the variously identified.
 
I agree that the whole thing is confusing. However, you only have to
look to a hispanic country to run across many people named Jesus! And
what about Arabic countries, where the tradition is to name the 1st
born male child Mohammed? In fact, some families name all their boys
Mohammed.
 
I heard a story on the radio news today about a province in India (or
amybe Pakistan) where people are routinely named after important
characters in world history when the child is born. Thus, in current
elections, local boys named Hitler, Stalin, King Albert and Truman are
all running for government positions. No bull.
 
Finally, during the 14-15th centuries, something like 75%+ of the
males in england were named Richard, Henry, John, or William. Lots of
nichnames back then.
 
I do name some characters in my game after important mythic figures,
though I usually do it to western characters. Thus, Archbishop Arkat
Rishkin of Sentanos, leader of the Henotheist church for that land.
 
Ultimately, the name Yamsur survived in the Sun County text because of
overcautious, rushed editing.
 
On the creation of the Yelmalio cult in the 16th century.
 
King of Sartar explains the historical basis of the Yelmalio cult.
There it is called Elmal or some such.
 
It grew out of a cultural "contamination" by Dara Happa solar
worshippers, coming in contact with the Orlanth pantheon Elmlio cult,
the cult of the guardian of light for the storm gods. Elmlio stayed
behind and guarded the stead while Orlanth took off on his quests.
 
The contamination came by tempting the Elmlio cultists to expand out
of their bounds as guardians, and guys that always got the snot beaten
out of them in religious rituals, where they traditionally took the
roles of the solar enemies of Orlanth. They got uppity, and they
started to try an win, which can have serious repercussions to the
well being of your festival.
 
So, they became a separate cult, and set up their own way of life and
such. Even so, they are more like Orlanthi than Sun worshippers.
 
In redifining and creeating their own myth (which required
heroquesting) they changed the nature of realty. Now, the myth of
Yelmalio stands for them as we are all familiar with it. To them,
Yelmalio really did walk in the DArkness, no frend to Orlanth, just as
Jesus really did rise from the dead if you ask a christian.
 
The power of faith and belief being rather stronger in Glorantha than
here, reality changes to accomodate, and this includes the sudden
emergence of cult records written before the (historical) founding of
the cult, old buildings (like the Old Sun Dome) and so on.
REvisionist history writeen across the past in stone and ink.
 
ON Yelm the Elder:
 
I think the various solar cults who enable Yelm status actually do the
supporting necessary, without having to have a big local population.
Clearly, the Yelm cult works differently than most, since it is
inconceivable that enough population has mebership to support Great
Temples, though obviously such exist. In Dara Happa, for example, I
think the huge majority of solar worshippers are Lodrili, with a thin
crust of Yelmists above them.
 
Thus, you retire to Yelm the Elder, but you don't have to lead a
congregattion or anything like that.
 
Whew.
Mike Dawson
M >|<

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From: trystro!rune@Think.COM (Peter Maranci)
Subject: RQ: Settings and miscellaneous
Message-ID: <9302040325.AA25380@Early-Bird.Think.COM>
Date: 4 Feb 93 02:33:19 GMT

> From: bell@cs.unc.edu (Andrew Bell)

(In response to my suggestion that alternate systems of magic be
released for alternate settings):

AB> I'd definitely discourage the Chaosium/Glorantha folks from
AB> doing anything along this line.  Instead, if any group
AB> decides to create non-Gloranthan RQ stuff, they should
AB> include their own magic system if they want to use
AB> "non-standard" magic.  If AH/Chaosium can find a good group
AB> to create a fair amount of high quality non-Gloranthan RQ
AB> stuff, it might be worthwhile as a way to get people
AB> interested in RQ who would find Glorantha too different to
AB> get into easily.

Gee, I've always run *all* my games with the Runequest system, and
only about half of them are set in Glorantha. I'm not suggesting that
Chaosium/AH should make any other setting to *rival* Glorantha --
after all, that wouldn't be possible. But since RQ is a system for
more sophisticated gamers, why not supply them with more sophisticated
game tools? I mean, I doubt that many RQ players play only in
Glorantha. If I'm wrong about this, I'd like to hear about it.

Plug:

I might as well take the opportunity to mention that an old source for
RQ material is still around, and is increasing the amount of RQ
coverage. Those with the RQ2 book may remember "The Wild Hunt" APA
from the "Sources" section. Greg Stafford hasn't contributed to TWH
for years, but some old RuneQuesters still do. And I believe that back
issues, possibly including some with old Stafford zines, are still
available (though it might take Mark Swanson, the editor, a while to
dig them up...8^>} In the interests of truth in advertising, I should
admit that yours truly does contribute a zine to The WIld Hunt
himself. For info, contact:

                                Mark Swanson
                                 40 Bow St.
                            Arlington MA  02174

	I only hope I'll be forgiven this shameless plug. 8^>}

								-->Pete
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Maranci
trystro!rune@think.com                  or                rune@trystro.uucp
Does an Elf who wants to commit suicide have to cast Food Song on itself first?

---------------------

From: SPB1@vms.bton.ac.uk (Ghost Dancer)
Subject: Fatigue and the Glowline - Thoughts and questions
Message-ID: <9302041107.AA23631@Sun.COM>
Date: 4 Feb 93 10:28:00 GMT

I read the responses to my fatigue suggestion with interest and I take
the point about adventurers being at the peak of fitness. One thing
that occurs to me though is what about non active adventurers or new
players with previous experience that does not lend itself to physical
exertion, examples that come to mind are Priests and scribes but you
could probably also include Nobles and Shaman. Such character types
would not have the oppertunities to keep fit and should not be able to
actively participate in physical activities on the same level as a
Soldier or Farmer. Are these differences worth bothering about, do we
want a true to life system or a glossy abstract, I don't know, when
does realism cease to be an advantage and become a hinderence???

Finaly a question about the Glowline. Is Sun Dome County included in
the Gl Glowline (1621 ST), I can find no reference that mentions this
but I may be looking in the wrong place. If it isn't already within
the Glowline then what are the requirements for inclusion? The reason
I ask is that I am writting a scenario set in Morning in Sun Dome
County and would like to put a bit of pressure on the party by having
them wake up one morning to find the Red Moon in the sky, they would
then of course want to find out why and possibly stop it. What I am
looking for is something subtle such as a hidden Seven Mothers temple
being established, this scenario is intended to be an investagative
type a bit like a Call of Cthulhu game so 200 Lunar troops descending
on the village would not suit the plot. Any thoughts or help greatly
appreciated.
   ._
  /! \  Alternative
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/  ! \  Games Club                  e-mail: SPB1@VMS.BTON.AC.UK