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Date: Fri, 21 May 93 17:15:27 +0200
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From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer)
To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest)
Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily)
Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Fri, 21 May 1993, part 2
Precedence: junk
Status: OR
The RuneQuest Daily and RuneQuest Digest deal with the subjects of
Avalon Hill's RPG and Greg Stafford's world of Glorantha.
Send submissions and followup to "RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM",
they will automatically be included in a next issue. Try to change the
Subject: line from the default Re: RuneQuest Daily... on replying.
Selected articles may also appear in a regular Digest. If you
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Send enquiries and Subscription Requests to the editor:
RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Henk Langeveld)
---------------------
From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu
Subject: Re: Reply to various ideas
Message-ID: <9305201933.AA03723@bondi.phyast.pitt.edu>
Date: 20 May 93 19:33:06 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 832
Paul Reilly here.
Graeme Lindsell writes about the Trickster version of the 'original'
Death myth:
> One thing I like about this retro-fit is that the Trickster is a very early
>mythic figure, one that tends to disappear as cultures become civilized.
>Trickster being the original finder and user of Death is a myth I could
In our Harangvat folktales Crow is the trickster figure and Death is
a shiny, sharp object that he gets from Raven, who has many such things.
He doesn't really understand it at first and tries it out on the Old Man
of the Island. He is alarmed at the result and carries it off clutched
in his claws. It cuts his feet and he drops it, whereupon it is picked
up by the wind and carried all the way up to the sun, which turns bloody
(spectacular sunsets up there) and falls into the west. Death fall from
the and buries itself into the Earth. From the spot where it falls springs
up the First Axe, which is found by Tree Chopper.
At some point I will try to send out a bunch of Harangvat tales.
I like the interest in songs and at some point will try to send in
'Eurmal's Wooing of Babeester Gor', a favorite song of Trollkin Puppet
Theatre. Parts of "Praise the Lord for He has Spoken" work well for either
the Invisible God or Yelm:
Praise the Lord for He has spoken
Worlds his mighty voice obeyed
Laws that never shall be broken
For their guidance he has made.
And 'Amazing Grace' has one of the best explanations of Eternity I've
ever seen, which could go with the Infinity Rune:
When we've been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the Sun
We've no less days to sing God's (or Yelm's) praise
Than when we'd first begun.
____________________
Nick says that Irripi Ontor and Lhankor Mhy share Temple space. This
is a relief as in something we are working on for AH we have a joint shrine.
If anyone knows anything 'official' about Irripi Ontor please let me know
as we want to have an Irripi Ontor Rune level described in the same
work. I was planning to give him a limited subset of Lhankor Mhy's spells
witha few associate Lunar Deities granting him some extra magics.
We think that Danfive Xaroni form the backbone of Lunar Intelligence. With
the criminal background of many cultists they have the right skills and
attitude for the job and their loyalty is well assured. Look at Gimgim
the Grim and you can see that Intelligence recruits from the criminal
element.
We are working on a Deezola who is NOT just a weak Lunar version of
Chalana Arroy but has a rather different approach to healing. If people
want i will post a draft but otherwise I will wait until more work is done.
Again we do not expect to be able to publish a full Cult of Deezola but
want to work it out as part of the deep background for our supplement.
Nick's comments on the parallels between the Seven Mothers' rebuilding
of the Red Goddess and the Lightbringer's Quest are interesting and inspires
an off-the -wall idea: What if they were intending to do the Lightbringer's
Quest but got lost and found the Lunar Goddess by accident instead of
Yelm, and the early history of the cult is retrofitted?
Retrofitting is certainly done in Glorantha. Remember the God Learners
were amazed when artificial gods like ORLANTH showed real power? I'll
look up the reference on this, they may have used one of Orlanth's other
names.
>Paul Reilly's contributions were as thoughtful as ever.
This could be read two ways :-) I am looking for my old notes on Elements
as I went through many changes of mind on how it should go and can't
remember exactly what I settled down with.
Of all the Spirits of Retribution I think that the Red Tapeworm has
the best chance to survive The Day The Magic Changes, after all there
is good evidence that it attacks people here on Earth, a non-magical
world!
_______________
Replying to Oliver J:
Spell casting in combat was and is done by real Earth warriors. Look at
Viking Berserks, they are doing something modeled in the game as Fanaticism
or Berserk. I think of some of the simpler spirit magics as focussing
one's willpower (modelled as MP's) for certain effects. When I am fighting
I can concentrate for a while and effectively get a higher DEX but at
some point this becomes quite tiring mentally.
One can run a low-magic world while using the RQ Magic system to model
common dramatic battle actions. Example:
Casting Demoralize in combat represents shouting:
"You sniveling dog! I am Holger the Red, and I've killed more men than
I can count!" while spending willpower to get the message across.
This Low Magic approach is certainly appropriate for historical campaigns.
Glorantha could be run this way or with flashy magical effects for even
common magics.
Low magic can be quite fun. In this style try to make it ambiguous whether
magic really wroks as long as possible. Did the Baron have a stroke or
did a sorceror ensorcel him (Palsy)?
Movement: Thirds will work better if the base move is 3. I still like
Pendragon combat though, it has enough detail for me and cuts
out a lot of the junk. It keeps the strategic elements.
Time in melee:
Drawing from SCA experience here. If I am engaged in a melee and I see some
comrades in trouble across the field there are a lot of things I can do to
speed up the combat. Melee time _feels_ variable although it does fall
into chunks of varying size. It's really tricky to capture the feel of
this in a game.
In many ways if it were possible we'd like to see RQ II as the starting
point for RQ IV, with some of the better ideas from RQ III adopted. I
agree that strike ranks seemed to work better in RQ II somehow.
I am working on a playtest message for Oliver, but will throw out a few ideas
here to everyone and see what reactions are.
General comment: I think we should decide on what is possible and
common in Glorantha first and then design rules to logically fit that
system. Currently the rules and the world description do not fit
well together, especially in the case of Sorcery.
POWER: Instead of basing it on magical activity I'd say that certain
people who are not professional magicians nonetheless accumulate a lot
of Power. Look at Orenda among the Iroquois or _mana_ from the Polynesians:
these attach to great warriors or leaders as well.
I'll try to compose a message on this at some point but I think that
one thing we should try to decide is just what we are measuring.
Different people may be awarded Power for quite different things.
For example a Lhankor Mhy who outdebates an Irripi Ontor concerning
a subtle point of Slontos history may get a Pow gain from it, while
a Healer may gain mana for saving the life of a peasant's child.
This would be tricky if not handled carefully. More on this later.
POW Spirits must go. I much prefer people having a LARGE amount
of 'batteries' and relatively little 'generator' so that they are motivated
to save up if possible. Currently POW spirits are cheaper to get per
Power than is magic point storage per point. This leads to a situation,
especially for sorcerors, where you want to cast all your spells every
day.
Well, I don't want to mouth off (keyboard off?) too much about rules
yet in this forum. I need time to put together a considered post.
_________________________
Andrew Bell comments on my Runic Ties:
>I like it! Presumably heroquesting might allow you to "cheat", and thus
>get strong ties to opposing runes.
Actually we had Illumination cause you to be able to benefit from BOTH
of two opposing runes, but you lose any penalty or bonus from an excess of
one or the other. This encouraged Illuminates to attempt to embrace
their opposites. Perhaps heroquesting would have been better in this
role.
We allowed Heroquest to produce quite strong ties. Even weak ties produced
pronounced behavioral effects. The person with a 5% bonus to Fast Talk when
telling the truth and a 5% penalty when lying will almost always try to
use the truth.
Races also had ties, for example Trollkin had a 10% Darkness tie but with
double penalty for Light actions (fire spells etc.), Trolls had a 20% tie
(including Initiation in a darkness cult, etc.) Beast Men had an Beast Rune
tie, etc.
About the system Burton writes:
>This can get hairy, but I'm willing to give it a go.
We found that it was very easy to decide which actions were favored by
Form, Condition, and Power Runes. Elements were harder. More examples:
A Tie to Mastery (Given by Orlanth Rex Initiation, being born into the
Sartar Royal Family, etc.) gives a bonus on action where the Masterful
person is in charge, and a penalty if they are obeying someone else. This
gives great motivation for fractious Orlanthi clan chiefs!
The Slavery (reversed Mastery) Rune, owned by Ompalam, gives the opposite
effect, thus Ompalami societies have people always looking for orders but
perhaps poor leadership at the top!
Earth Rune gave bonuses on Farming, Mineral Lore, and the like.
Increasing your Tie to the Magic Rune gave a 5% bonus to casting spells,
resisting spells, and added one to your magic points per day - in other
words this is a POW gain.
Increasing your Tie to the Infinity Rune probably makes you better at
Everything.
Those tied to the Chaos Rune got a bonus for UnLawful actions and of
course a penalty if they tried to go straight! This works to explain the
actions of Broo and the like. Along these lines we decided that many of
the Chaos gods were tied to breaking one specific law - Thed, Goddess of
Rape, Cacodemon, God of Cannibalism, Selana (our own) Goddess of Incest,
etc. Breaking these 'fundamental' laws gave a chance of Involuntary
Initiation, and further crimes were counted as acts of worship - this is
where Thed gets much of her power.
Oh, ties to the Life Rune gave penalties to killing and bonusses to
attempts to heal, procreate, or save someone's life - including parrying
for yourself. This made Healer characters a bit more viable, as I gave
them a strong Tie to the Life Rune.
Hannu asks:
>Does it scale up in practice. Say you have several
>players in a big melee, how do you keep up with these ties as players are
>doing lots of different actions. Penalties sound good also, but how do you
>judge what is against one's rune.
Let me give an easy example today and a harder one tomorrow.
Harold Humakti has a 20% Tie to the Death Rune and a 10% Tie to Truth.
Death Rune give bonus and penalty for different actions as follows:
+20% Trying to Kill Someone
+20% Trying to Sever Something
-20% Trying to Save a Life (Includes Healing someone from death's door,
parrying a killing blow, etc.)
Once played with a few times the player gets used to which actions give
a bonus and it becomes pretty automatic. Note that in a mock combat or
non-lethal duel the Humakti will not get the above bonus or penalty.
Truth rune gives a bonus for using the truth in Oratory or Fast Talk,
penalty for lying, penalty for ambushing someone, bonus for first round
of a combat where you could have ambushed someone but instead called
out to them. This last is very Clint Eastwood.
Water would give bonus to Swimming and Boating.
One question is do we want to include vaguely Elemental actions such as
causing Fear for Darkness or acting stodgy for Earth in this system? I
was giving 1% instead of 5% in these cases but it may be too little to
keep track of.
Acting crazy is probably favored by the Moon Rune, at least in its current
'broken' form.
All for now,
Paul R.
_______________________
Jeff: I rather like rock/paper/scissors for the Elements.
---------------------
From: stanley@plains.NoDak.edu (Brian Stanley)
Subject: RQ Daily
Message-ID: <199305202224.AA21364@plains.NoDak.edu>
Date: 20 May 93 12:24:52 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 833
>From: curtiss@netcom.com (Curtis Shenton)
> Well if the White Moon will someday rise as it's predicted it seems
> Glorantha will have to offer up the missing piece, the Green Moon! After
> all we've got red and blue now we need the last primary color. Has this
> ever been discussed before? I'm can't really think of anything in
> Gloranthan lore that comes close to being a "green moon" but it does
> make a certain amount of sense.
Sorry, green isn't the last primary color. Yellow is. But why not,
green comes in lots more icky putrified shades...
----------------------------------------------------------------
Brian Stanley stanley@plains.nodak.edu
----------------------------------------------------------------
"That red stuff, that's BLOOD that is. Meant to be on the
inside, it is. BAD sign if it's not on the inside, that's what
I says." -A rather amusing little hedgehog
----------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------
From: 100270.337@CompuServe.COM (Nick Brooke)
Subject: For Graeme Lindsell
Message-ID: <930521070948_100270.337_BHB38-1@CompuServe.COM>
Date: 21 May 93 07:09:48 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 834
Graeme said:
> Actually the Westerners see an impersonal, "scientific" universe,
> don't they? I'd say they'd prefer Death seen as an object rather
> than a person. I've always seen "Humct" as just a way of putting
> down barbarian beliefs.
Not sure here. The standard Western "explanation" of "False Gods" (per
Prosopaedia) says they were once powerful mortal sorcerers who specialised
too far (or who over-reached themselves). We don't hear that they were
ordinary people who happened to pick up wacky magical items. I'd guess
this is a *very* basic reflection of their "humanist" views -- which in a
broader view would expand to "Man is the measure of all things" vel sim.
The Western cultures are all human-supremacist; the Brithini Pentagram is
the "pure" form of the Man rune; etc. So I'm not sure that Westerners do
see the universe as quite so "impersonal." And as noted before, we *know*
that the Orlanthi (used to?) think Humakt is a Sword.
I agree with you that Western *Symbolism* is enhanced by the use of Runes:
the dichotomy between Sword (Death Rune) and Grail (Life Rune) is hard to
resist as a Hrestoli image. I am looking forward to seeing the various
promised attempts to build a Runic Sorcery system, which could be fun.
After all, we know that the Western sorcerers use Runes more than anyone
else...
> If Arkat stole Humakt from Orlanth, it'd explain why Orlanth doesn't
> have the Death rune. The "clever bugger" may have been Arkat
> himself: when Harmast rescued him from Hell, he might have
> wanted to give his new allies' Death powers back, but keep them
> under his control. If Arkat had stolen all Orlanth's Death powers,
> the Orlanthi might have forgotten they ever had them. The structure
> of the Humakt cult may be Western only because Arkat was: the
> "Humct" label may have come later.
This looks plausible. I think Arkat was weaker than you imagine when
Harmast rescued him from Hell; accusing him of stealing a sword he already
possessed is also a bit off. But the idea that Arkat fostered a barbarian
Humakt cult in order to allow the proliferation of Death beyond (say) a
single Orlanthi subcult of the "Fifth Magic Weapon" is neat. He certainly
was a clever bugger (not like that incompetent Argrath...). Agreed, using
any "False God" as a label is dangerous. "Humct" is useful as a
pre-existing name for "Western Humakt," but I'm not attached to it myself.
*Loved* Oliver J's off-hand comment on this little dilemma -- Worlath, too!
Maybe we were all Vadrudings at the start...
> ...I don't really like limiting initiates to once a year...
Y'know, I was worried people would think I was giving out *too much* Rune
magic! By the way, your proposed (tried and tested?) system for regaining
Rune magic involves rolling lots of dice. No good rules system should
involve rolling lots of dice (though fear of rolling *any* is also a Bad
Thing: "+3.5%" skill gain merchants please note). This is tacit agreement
with your criticism of post-adventure experience rolls, I suppose. Look at
Pendragon, again, for good ideas on how to streamline these things...
>Loskalm
Graeme, I've got some bad news: there are nasty people out there in the
real world who have been extremely rude about:
i) The Chivalric Ideal;
ii) The Islamic Jihad;
iii) The Communist Internationale.
These are the three examples you propose for a Loskalmi society that is
above reproach? I'm just stirring some nasty stuff into the "pure and
clean" Loskalm we're all taught about from the rules-books; seeing what
sticks...
But I agree with you, I'd *love* to know more about "what makes Loskalm
tick": the nuts and bolts of everyday Hrestoli idealism. As I've said
before, I don't yet believe that it can "tick", which is at the root of my
cynicism. If you convinced me, I would join in the National Anthem as
loudly as anyone...
Cheers,
Nick
---------------------
From: joe@tpki.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner)
Subject: Elmal again
Message-ID:
Date: 21 May 93 08:19:24 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 835
I've been digging my heels into Gloranthan Lore again and pushed may way
through all Yelmalio material available to me. I noticed some peculiar
points:
Monrogh is named Cult Founder and Son of Yelmalio. The latter may be a mere
epithet, but the former is interesting in connection with the fragment from
Jalk's Book (KoS), where he is said to have lived during the rein of
Tarkalor, some 80 years before now (around 1620 ST). In Sun County (and
Pavis Box), however, there is a 500 year old tradition about Sun Dome
Templars in Prax. These are not and possibly were never incorporated into
Storm Worship, as an interesting fragment from Biturian Varosh's Travels
shows the incident of the Three-Slaying, having a Light Son fighting and
killing three Storm worshippers in order to retain the rights on his
(non-earth cultist) wife in reenactment of a deed of Yelmalio.
The wife of the god had been robbed by Storm Gods. Now would Oranth let this
happen to a) his loyal thane and son-in-law Elmal and b) to his own
daughter, or even participate in it?
If this is not some anti-storm God Learner theomancy, I'd take it as a clue
about two distinct gods. Comments?
Another Yelmalian Question:
Why do the Yelmalians prefer barley as main harvest? The grain goddess
associated with barley is Frona, goddess of Fronela. A clue to the origin of
the Sun Dome Temples?
--
Joerg Baumgartner
---------------------
From: agmsmith@BIX.com
Subject: Help! What is the RuneQuest Digest?
Message-ID: <9305210741.memo.34187@BIX.com>
Date: 21 May 93 03:41:20 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 836
Hi. One of the people in our RuneQuest group heard about the RuneQuest
digest. It sounds quite interesting to us so I got appointed to find out
more about it :-). Unfortunately all we have is this E-mail (I presume)
address. So, could you please mail me some information about the RuneQuest
digest (what it is, how to subscribe, how to get back issues)?
Thanks in advance.
- Alex
---------------------
From: MOBTOTRM@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au
Subject: Scenarios for TALES OF THE REACHING MOON!
Message-ID: <01GYGGHCHZDO95PG3O@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au>
Date: 22 May 93 11:40:24 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 837
G'Day all,
Someone recently mentioned that they had a "Balazar-based"
scenario. To that RQ DAILY NEWS reader and other
scenario writers out there in the ether, I would like
to invite you to submit your scenario material to
TALES. We probably receive fewer scenarios/cameos than
any other types of submissions, but their is great
demand for them.
Scenarios should be no longer than about 8000 words, and
the shorter they are, the easier we can fit 'em in. Stats
should be kept to a minimum.
Scenarios must be Gloranthan and certain elements can
make a scenario more Gloranthan, such as detail on the
local culture or society, magic and mysticism, myth,
religion and ritual. We're especially on the lookout
for scenarios that are innovative and challenging, but not
necessarily via lots of hack 'n slash.
Cameos are scenario or campaign ideas without the detail and
explanation of the typical scenario. There should be little
or no stats, and maybe a map or magic item description.
Good cameos will always see print because we can get more
in the zine!
For more information about submissions to TALES, see our
Writer's Guidelines sheet (from which I have lifted the
above). You can get it from the editorial addresses
(remember the SSAE!)
Hope to hear from some of you soon!
Cheers,
MOB