(Message rqd:36) Return-Path:Received: from Holland.Sun.COM (sunnl) by homeland.Holland.Sun.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA08432; Thu, 17 Jun 93 17:16:58 +0200 Received: from glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM by Holland.Sun.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1e) id AA18900; Thu, 17 Jun 93 17:16:16 +0200 Received: by glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA01519; Thu, 17 Jun 93 17:15:22 +0200 Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 17:15:22 +0200 Message-Id: <9306171515.AA01519@glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM> 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, Thu, 17 Jun 1993, part 1 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 want to submit articles to the Digest only, contact the editor at RuneQuest-Digest-Editor@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM. Send enquiries and Subscription Requests to the editor: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Henk Langeveld) --------------------- From: rog@insignia.co.uk (Rog) Subject: Curry Message-ID: <1037.9306161524@cube.insignia.co.uk> Date: 16 Jun 93 17:24:17 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1086 Ade says, > Ive just had a curry Where do the best curries in Glorantha come from? I assume that the UZ could make you a fairly leatal Elf vindaloo, but I doubt the lager you got at troll tandoori house would kill the pain... Rog --------------------- From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Wed, 16 Jun 1993, part 2 Message-ID: <9306161712.AA01042@bondi.phyast.pitt.edu> Date: 16 Jun 93 17:12:46 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1087 Reply to Curtis: On ogres: >But I think it came out sounding much too scientific I agree, as we said we hadn't finished Glorantha-izing it. The original stuff was written back around the time Vikings came out and Alternate Earth was the thing. We wrote it for Alternate Earth complete with evolution and biochemistry (bile salts, etc.) and never completely adapted it to Glorantha. Some stuff like this crept in, sorry. Pay us $10 an hour and we'll get rid of all editing errors. Good suggestion about Daka Fal, some might do this but it doesn't seem to fit in with the big city ogres. Maybe, have to think about it. I think that strength being bred in is better. Summoning ancestors and 'eating' them might be a way to gain Chaos power, though. Sorcery: >one or two sample sorcery using >cultures. I'd suggest the Malkioni and the Mostali Good idea, but I'd be a lot more specific and use examples like Carmanian sorcerors and Openhandist Tin Mostali. The general examples you mention are a bit like Lunar Pantheon or Pamalt Pantheon, with too much material to get to interesting detail. Malkionism could be a book in itself. MOB: > Sorcery (yawn!) It's just the hot topic at the moment. Why not throw out some good Gloranthan background ideas and see if anyone bites. I think eliminating sorcery from the basic RQ4 rules would be a mistake, this is like taking a car to the shop which has a cracked engine block and some scratches and dents - then they do the body work but leave the cracked engine block in. The big change should fix what is most broken. ___________ Reply to Nick's stuff: >Mark S. said: ... >>the Rokari/Hrestoli >> split as a continuation of the first age Seshnelan conflict >> between the Linealists and Idealists, as opposed to the result >> of an early third age "heresy/reformation Look at the history of Christian heresies: heretical doctrines that were 'completely wiped out' seem to resurface centuries later. Look at Manicheeism for example and compare the Catharist heresy, centuries later. Was there a surviving underground tradition or is this just a parallel development? No one knows. Similarly, Malkionism produces very similar variants centuries apart. Did the Linealists (e.g., the Serpent Kings) somehow survive underground until Rokar, a secret Linealist, brought out the old doctrines? Or did he rediscover the same basic truths (or falsehoods) that had been lost for the better part of a millenium? Horrible idea: Rokar was a great sorceror in the First Age who travelled to the Dara Happan Empire and brought them Western concepts such as coined money and wheeled vehicles. He was even worshipped along with Ehilm as a False God. Centuries later he realized the error of his ways and returned to Seshnela to beg forgiveness and enter a monastery of the True Religion. When he got there he found that the True Religion had been extinguished and a twisted Idealism had taken root. He led a reformation back to the old ways and then retired to monastic life. (The first age Dara Happans had trouble with initial "R's" and used L instead, also added -nos as a suffix to the names of important people like Ehilm's councilors...) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ NOT A SERIOUS SUGGESTION, FOLKS ____________ Responding to Joerg again, he quotes Oliver: >> With respect to the origin of humanity according to the >> Brithini, what I've heard is that the Brithini claim >> that they are the only true humans, other races of >> humanity are degenerates that interbred with beasts >> or the descendants of beasts that tried to assume human >> form (the Hsunchen). >That's what I heard, too This originated with me, NOT FROM AN OFFICIAL SOURCE. I'd be delighted if it turned official but years after I wrote it up David Hall told me that 'mud men' were the official Brithini line on humans. I figured Ogres could believe that Brithini believe in mud men or animal men, an animal origin for most humans fits in so well with the Hsunchen and Beast Men. In this theory Beast Men are stuck in a half-form, Praxians used to be Hsunchen types matching their herd beasts (and half of each tribe got stuck with each form), Orlanthi were sheep or cattle Hsunchen, Orlanthi Storm Bulls are often throwbacks to the pure cattle strain, etc. Many crossbreeds now exist. THIS IS NOT AN OFFICIAL THEORY AS FAR AS I KNOW. It comes from me. You are welcome to use it in your campaign but unless confirmed from Above don't spread it around as official Gloranthan. It was a lot of fun in our campaign, the Brithini had a spell to make people revert to their orginal type, this could get pretty ugly if you were a crossbreed. Oh, Dara Happans may have been horse and falcon Hsunchen with a good admixture of True Human blood, after all Yelm/Ehilm was a renegade Brithini who founded the royal lines... Joerg quoting Oliver again: >>Umathelan sorcery was Rokari >> dominated, correct? >It seemed so in the Umathela description Greg published Now I'm really confused. Wasn't the Rokari Reformation AFTER the Closing? Maybe they are Linealist refugees from first age Seshnela, or a parallel development? ____________________- "DO9EA00" suggests: >Sorceres pit their all (and >indeed their very existance) against the chance of manipulating the >universe into giving the effect they require Good description here - this requires a lot of Life Force, hence the "Vows" of Rokari and the special foods of Kingtroll sorcerors - fuel for the efforts described above. [Stuff about secrecy] >In gloranthan terms different schools of sorcery may be as far apart as >two contenants in which case information transfer would be very very slow. Agreed. Cultural divergence may however be slower than on Earth, especially if the heads of the schools have extended lives. Old scientists don't accept new theories, they just die off. Old sorcerors don't accept new ways of doing magic, AND they don't necessarily die off. >Perhaps of course people out their feel that sorceres live in a post >enlightenment world, with international journals of sorcery and a >royal society etc... In that case all they need to do is publish papers This was the God Learner era, I think. - Paul --------------------- From: STEVEG@ARC.UG.EDS.COM (Entropy needs no maintenance) Subject: Sorcery Message-ID: <01GZFVXXU9QQ004VLI@UG.EDS.COM> Date: 16 Jun 93 02:20:02 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1088 Carl Fink writes > It is once more suggested that we leave sorcery out of the basic >rules. This violates the First Commandment we set up when we started >out: Thou Shalt Not Ruin Existing Characters. That is, it would become >impossible to keep running existing sorcerors. Surely if the characters already exist, the players have access to RQ3, which they can continue to use until the refit comes out. If the players don't have RQ3, then they don't have any sorcerers to be ruined. The new sorcery rules shouldn't be made to suffer from the "never time to do it properly, always time to do it over" approach. --------------------- From: carlf@Panix.Com (Carl Fink) Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Wed, 16 Message-ID: <199306161833.AA01576@sun.Panix.Com> Date: 16 Jun 93 10:33:22 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1089 To: runequest@glorantha.holland.sun.com Subject: Ethilrist joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner) writes: He said: R>>>...The closest Brithini >>>settlements are on the God Forgot Isles, Refuge and Casino Town are >>>especially mentioned. Then I said: R>> Yes, but remember Ethilrist entered Hell in one place and left in >> another. Then he said: R>What do you mean by that answer? I mean that the proximity of Brithini settlements is not relevant, because Ethilrist didn't come from anywhere near Muse Roost. He *exited* Hell there, but he entered somewhere else - Jrustela for all I know. --------------------- From: gadbois@cs.utexas.edu (David Gadbois) Subject: Fire and Ice [Was: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Tue, Sorcery, and little else] Message-ID: <19930616200911.4.GADBOIS@CLIO.MCC.COM> Date: 16 Jun 93 10:09:00 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1090 From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner) Date: 16 Jun 93 08:59:41 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1083 [...] And David Hall gave me some hints that the fiery desert in southern Pamaltela may be in part a recent phenomenon. Recent mythologically speaking. The story I heard (from Petersen, I think) is that Chaos entered Glorantha during the Greater Darkness by lifting up the world in the north and entering from the hole created there, thus causing the south to dip lower. That's why the north of Genertela is icy and the south of Pameltela is fiery, and why there is such an abundance of small chaos critters in Genertela and just a few big ones in Pameltela -- only the toughest made their way south. --David Gadbois --------------------- From: maf1@crux2.cit.cornell.edu Subject: RuneQuest Daily Message-ID: <9306170408.AA05245@crux3.cit.cornell.edu> Date: 16 Jun 93 20:08:51 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1091 I've just recently joined RQ daily and am following the debate on RQIV sorcery rules. Can someone fill me in on why the RQIII rules are deemed too powerful or ill-fitting? You can e-mail me if you don't want to take up bandwidth rehashing what you all already know. Thanks, Mark Foster P.S. Is there anyone else in upstate New York on this net? Nobody at Cornell plays RQ as far as I know. --------------------- From: wadsley@chipmunk.cita.utoronto.ca Subject: Sorcery Message-ID: <9306170449.AA24042@hawk.cita.utoronto.ca> Date: 17 Jun 93 04:49:07 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1092 Regarding previous comments about sorcery: I don't like the ideas of free-INT, twins or vows and restrictions. I always used the idea that the maximum manipulation allowed was 1/5 skill. Eg. Sorcery Range 72% => Maximum 14 points in range. Also, total manipulation is restricted by INT. I take this to mean that the total magic points are less than or equal to INT. Thus a 10 intensity, 8 duration ( roughly 1 day I think ) spell is at the limit. Rather than having a hard and fast limit like this, I experimented with having a risk associated with the amount of magic points involved. INT is still the measure of capacity and the risk was something like this: Spell mp are: Risk: Example for 18 INT: ------------- ----- ------------------- up to 1/2 INT None 1 intensity, 8 duration = no risk 1/2 INT to INT (mp-INT/2)% 3 intensity, 8 duration = 2% risk more than INT 10%+(mp-INT)x5% 15 intensity, 8 duration = 35% risk If the risk roll goes the wrong way then anything from loss of POW, temporary or permanent (!) INT loss to demon appearances may result. A table of such things is easy to generate. You can also make the "damage" worse if the risk is greater: Roll Result to be applied IF roll is less or equal than risk % ---- --------------------------------------------------------- 01 Lose 1d4 INT for 1 day ( migraine ) 02-09 Lose 1 POW permanently 10 Attract random spirit ( from Spirit Plane Encounter table ) 11-19 Lose 1d4 POW permanently 20 Attract Outer Region Spirit 21-29 Lose 1 INT permanently 30 Attract Inner Region Spirit 31-39 Lose 1d4 INT permanently 40+ Something nastier than any of the above This would prevent sorcerors doling out all but the smallest ( less than 9 mp ) spells unreservedly. One aspect of this sort of thing is that the risk could have a different connotation depending upon the culture. The table could be modified accordingly. For worshippers of Malkion, it might indicate Holy wrath and avenging angels might appear. The angels may instruct that a pilgrimage, massive donation to the church or other penitence is required. If the spell was performed for a righteous cause, then the character might be considered blessed and chosen... to go on a pilgrimage, raise funds for the church, to never again raise a sword or to have a vision and be struck blind. One thing I like about this approach is that it fits in well with standard sorcerous mythology but is easily tailored to fit a Gloranthan setting. It also provides spotaneous plot devices for the GM. --------------------- From: f6ri@midway.uchicago.edu (charles gregory fried) Subject: Howdy! Message-ID: Date: 17 Jun 93 10:20:52 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1093 Greg Fried here Just returned from a week away, and found about three hours worth of RQ in my email! Thanks to all those who responded to me in the Daily or personally. For the on-going census on PC party make-up and location: Well, my campaign resides in the East Isles. Almost all the PCs are cousins from one small clan of one tribe on a place called Aldin Island. Most of them worship ancestors and spirit cults. They are paleo/neolithic in culture. A couple of the PCs come from a much more advanced bronze age civilization and worship a deity of my invention: Maraben, god of scholars, administrators and politicians! --------- Peter Michaels: Thanks for your input on designing a quest for a PC to recover a lost ancestor. LEt me give you some more detail now. The shark worshipers who once ruled Aldin Island were (and are!) basically hsunchen, but their gods is more powerful than the typical hsunchen deities outlined in Cults Book. Beyond being able to sprout shark fins, body, skin, and head, Ratuk (the shark god) also grants the sharkies additional divine magic, such as Frenzy, which resembles Beserker and requires human blood. With the aid of this god, the sharkies ruled a not inconsiderable (though primitive) empire. The Aldin Island locals are not fish hsunchen, but rather fisher people who worship ancestors, Triolina, Ela Hin (son of Triolina -- a hunter god for fisher people) and other minor deities. In conquering the various tribes of Aldin, the sharkies performed a ritual in which each of the tribes' founding ancestor was fed to the shark god, and dismembered, but not annihilated. This ritual allowed the overlords to maintain the local people's basci social structure, but reducing them to demoralized vassals. They do remember their founders' names, but that is all. And the names cannot summon the ancestor if s/he is dismembered and dispersed. Finally, the last relevant detail to Aldin's history is that about two generations ago, the sharkies were expelled from the island, but not by the local tribespeople. Rather, the sharkies overreached their power and attacked an isolated, but highly organized bronze age culture. These people crushed the sharkies and rolled back their conquests, liberating Aldin Island. However, they are quite isolationist, leaving only a protective garrison on Aldin and restoring the ancient tribes to their freedom. It is in this context that one PC wishes to restore his founding ancestor (and you now know more than he!). Perhaps as you say, not a hero/visionquest is in order, but rather an elaborate mundane quest to recover the dispersed pieces of the ancestor. Or must that be done on the heroplane? ----------- Confession: I lied. My campaign is not in the East Isles. But for purposes of communicating with a broader RQ world, I choose to locate it there. I wonder if other GMs out there have this problem: I love the Gloranthan lore, borrow from it heavily, but want to run a campaign where very significant aspects of the cosmos are different from Glorantha. But if I wish to share my scenarios and cults with y'all, I need to Gloranthanize. Where do we heretics locate in Glorantha, if we want to publish in the Daily, or TotRM?! Some of you complain about how some areas are very sparsely described. But I think that's good! If all Glorantha gets 'filled in', even with very broad strokes, we pick 'n' choosers will get strangled. I like placing my campaign in the East Isles, a region of great size and variety. Please do not ordain that EVERYONE there has access to divine magic, but no spirit magic (only sorcery), or that EVERYONE there was subject to and molded by this or that empire! If you look at the map of east Glorantha, there must be tens of thousands of islands (like on Earthsea!) and some areas must be VERY remote. Tell me there's room there for my Northwest Amerind-type fishers, my polynesian style sharkies, some of the standard Earth and Sea cults, and even a Lodril volcano or two, and I'll be mollified. Then I might tell you about some more of the cults out there, but not in so long a format as Uralog! GF out.