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, Sat, 04 Dec 1993, part 1 Message-ID:Precedence: junk X-RQ-ID: Intro This is the RuneQuest Daily Bulletin, a mailing list on the subjects of Avalon Hill's RPG and Greg Stafford's world of Glorantha. It is sent out once per day in digest format. More details on the RuneQuest Daily and Digest can be found after the last message in this digest. --------------------- From: henkl@yelm (Henk Langeveld - Sun Nederland) Subject: Re: Graeme's big gorp sorceror's familiar Message-ID: <9312030905.AA12646@yelm.Holland.Sun.COM> Date: 3 Dec 93 11:05:22 GMT X-RQ-ID: 2530 Like the idea. Hate the consequences... --------------------- From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner) Subject: Brutality to players Message-ID: Date: 3 Dec 93 10:04:21 GMT X-RQ-ID: 2531 Sandy Petersen in X-RQ-ID: 2506 >Carl-Johan Lundell sez: >> The last one got a spell absorbtion feature. The BIG problem is >>that he is a Storm Bull initiate. What happen when he gets tainted? >Wow, you're brutal on your players! 3 out of 4 got Chaos features? In >my campaign, if a Storm Bull had received a chaos feature, I would >have left the decision up to him. Some players would probably have >attempted suicide, but others would have left the cult and gloried in >their chaoticness. Still others would probably have tried to join the >Seven Mothers to gain an understanding of their newly-chaotic nature. Talk about brutality. In my non-Glorantha campaign one character suffered a successful DI, leaving him at POW 3. Had I given him the choice of a random chaotic feature instead, he would have been thankful, and would have taken all social stigmata. Values differ, it seems. Of course Gloranthan chaos is even less well-regarded than "generic" chaos, but think of a group of thoroughly Lunarized barbarians, and you're not too far from my players' characters' (which started from an Alternate Vikings setting) motivations. What are the values in other groups? Mine would have serious trouble with any kind of characteristic loss, less with material or social loss, or with dying. -- -- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de --------------------- From: STEVEG@ARC.UG.EDS.COM (Steve Gilham Entropy requires no maintenance) Subject: Yelorna Message-ID: <01H60WTVIU9U006FCV@UG.EDS.COM> Date: 2 Dec 93 18:22:44 GMT X-RQ-ID: 2532 >can anybody tell me where I can find a write-up of the Yelorna >cult? In the "Big Rubble" box. Good hunting. And Good Luck upgrading it to RQ3! --------------------- From: J.Ditton@vme.glasgow.ac.uk Subject: INora Message-ID: <_3_Dec_93_14:43:28_A107C9@UK.AC.GLA.VME> Date: 3 Dec 93 14:43:28 GMT X-RQ-ID: 2534 Sam here -------- Would Inora not teach the cult skills of skate and ski? ;^) RE: Sacrifices A few years ago I wrote a game based on an alternate earth where the characters were crusaders vs orc like devil worshippers. I stole the RQ magic system almost in its entirety (Elven magic) but added a whole list of Sacrificial magic (Mostly evil although the Pseudo-Spanish peoples used a divine version where they sacrificed chickens and the like). The system worked by stealing a person's magical power through their bloood. However, magical power and innocence went hand in hand ie If you lost your innocence you lost magical power hence children and virgins were increadibly powerful and were also most favoured for evil devilworshipping sacrifices. The church also incouraged virginity for obvious reasons. If lost it could be regained through a ritual re-birth (being "born again") but this was a difficult process involving divine gifts. Certain barbarians would also use blood in magical rituals often there own. Certain plants also had magic power and would be used as Catalysts for certain spells. The game system itself was purely d6's. I thought it was very original until I saw Star Wars ;-( *sigh*... Still, the game system worked well and the sacrificial magic was a hoot. We only played a few games with it but I plan to dig it out for a re-write. A lot of the above could apply to RQ rituaal magic. Does a sword of sharpness involve blood in the casting?.. Cheers! Sam. x Not Scotland but Sartar --------------------- From: eosgg@raesp-farn.mod.uk (Geoff Gunner) Subject: Timelines, Gorp and things that go *phludgge* in the night Message-ID: <9312031522.AA19971@raesp-farn.mod.uk> Date: 3 Dec 93 15:22:52 GMT X-RQ-ID: 2535 As Colin has made mean work of my counterarguments about God-time, here's an argument from another angle. Why not say a heroquest is making God-time Immanent (ie. *now*). God-time is the fabric that makes up time. Before time, the fabric was free to change it's weft and pattern, and did so repeatedly. It changed so much it was in danger of unravelling (the introduction of chaos), so time was created freezing the weft in it's last state. On a heroquest, the hero becomes aware of the individual threads that make up the weft of time, and can manipulate these. Thus the world can be changed, gods born, die, or whatever. To the observer inside time, it appears that this has always been the case; the observer outside of time can see that this new reality only occurs from a certain point along the tapestry of time. There seem to be a lot of other tasty threads (sorry) that lead from this. It's a reworking of the bundled fibre analogy that we talked about in regards to magic and summoning. It also implies that the action of Heroquesting, in picking about at the weft, is getting Glorantha back to the state where it was in danger of unravelling. I can see good ties in with God-learner activites. Perhaps certain heroquests could be designed to make the weft tighter, shutting out chaos ? And what happens when the weft gets really loose ? Does chaos creep into the world ? Over to you, folks. re: Graeme's Slimestone Gorp ideas. Nice one about the sorcerer. But may I be a spoil-sport and say that the idea of Gorp is ridiculous, anyway ? ie. the acid capability. Now, what pH acid would be needed to eat through bronze plate in a single round ? Pretty low, I should imagine. 2? 1? I'm not achemist, but then saying something has 80 pt damage per round is crazy. That strength acid is going to eat through rock. Anyway, gorp acid should only be effective against organincs - your plate should be unscatherd by a gorp attack. And the thing's an amoeba. A move of 1 ? (Wild hysterical laughter in background). Active attacks ? (falls off console). I MEAN, come on. No, I don't like gorp. Geoff. --------------------- From: sandyp@idcube.idsoftware.com (Sandy Petersen) Subject: re: RQ Daily Message-ID: <9312031615.AA11510@idcube.idsoftware.com> Date: 3 Dec 93 04:15:01 GMT X-RQ-ID: 2536 Joerg Baumgartner writes: >It is quite clear that sea traffic to Loskalm was interrupted by >[the closing], whereas boat traffic between the islands was still >possible. The Closing generally only took effect if you went out of sight of land. >[various reasons] convince me of the necessity of Ygglinga and >certain Hsunchen tribes coexisting on the Islands. Makes sense to me. You've certainly picked the right Hsunchen (Uncoling, Pralori, and Rathori). The Uncoling and Pralori are, of course, related, and generally friendly to one another. >Harrek's easy acceptance among the Ygglinga could be seen as a sign >of the Ygglingas' familiarity with Hsunchen. Harrek is an ENEMY of the Hsunchen, and I suspect his acceptance among the Viking-like Ygglinga is more a result of his bloodymindedness and effectiveness in battle. Also don't forget possible relations with friendly, neutral, or hostile mermen and the Ygglinga, plus possible merman inhabitants of the lake by Winterwood. re: Pent The traditional theory about Pent (held by Greg and myself) was that nowadays, most Pentans rode horses and used cattle (say, 90% of the Pent tribes are no longer Pure Horse), and that around 25% of the Pent tribes have actually adopted storm gods, because of the many defeats the Pent nomads have suffered over the years, often at the hands of Theyalans. Some Pent nomads figured that their defeat was because they were worshiping the wrong gods and by gum they'd better switch. Also, they knew the worst enemies of the Lunars were the storm gods. >Does anybody know more about the Zebras and Pol Joni than these >sources tell us? Yes. But for whatever data I can provide, you'll have to wait till after the release of DOOM! Sorry. Thom Baguley writes: >What about the act of repentence you mentioned. RQ seems to have >neglected this aspect of religion ... For some acts no repentence >should be possible, but for others I would be inclined to allow >the possibility (e.g. for inadvertant geas breaking). If only to give the hapless players a break, I've always allowed them to repent of misdeeds and get the damn Spirit of Retribution off their backs. A Humakti that inadvertantly broke his geas should be allowed to repent in some way (chosen by his Sword -- or, if he has no Sword in charge of him because he is the top Sword around, chosen by Divination). If the Humakti had willingly broke his geas, I'd still let him repent, but it would be harder. Killing Slimestone I suspect Slimestone may be a match for a true dragon. Both might die in the struggle. Probably worth it, though -- such an act gets rid of two dire threats at once (if you consider true dragons a dire threat, as do most folks). --------------------- From: shillada@gatwick.sgp.slb.com Subject: Snake Pipe and the perils of chaos taints Message-ID: <9312031647.AA24465@icarus.gatwick.sgp.slb.com> Date: 3 Dec 93 16:47:08 GMT X-RQ-ID: 2537 Carl-Johan Lundell mentioned chaos features picked up in the Hollow. This reminded me of my own campaign there, where one of the PCs picked up a feature that was not obvious. However, the Storm Khan detected the chaos. Due to the fact that they had been friends for many seasons, he allowed his opponent to arm himself first, but the outcome was never in doubt, and a very short and very bloody massacre took place. The player of the slain PC, was very philosophical about the whole affair, for although he had played his character for a many years, everybody knows how dangerous Storm Khans are both to friend and foe. --------------------- From: MAB@SAVAX750.RUTHERFORD.AC.UK (Mystic Musk Ox) Subject: anonymous ftp request Message-ID: <9312031740.AA20226@Sun.COM> Date: 3 Dec 93 14:20:00 GMT X-RQ-ID: 2538 Does anyone have any ftp addresses of useful stuff for RQ? I remember a while ago there was a list, but I don't seem to have it any more - it included new cults etc thanks in advance Mark --------------------- From: watson@computing-science.aberdeen.ac.uk (Colin Watson) Subject: Mmmore humbugs... Message-ID: <9312031653.AA16211@condor> Date: 3 Dec 93 16:53:52 GMT X-RQ-ID: 2539 ___________ David Cheng wrote: >I feel a great need to add my 'bah humbugs' to Geoff Gunner's. The whole >time travel thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I'll take this opportunity to say that *in general* I have similar feelings about time travel. Most fiction which depicts time travel leaves glaring holes in the plot (which are never exploited by the characters, of course). It does not lend itself for use in RPGs (because there the characters *will* exploit those loopholes). But in the special case of Glorantha I think that time travel is at least *feasible*. The basis of mythomagic in Glorantha relies on making changes in the past to affect the present. Ok, so these changes are generally assumed to occur in GodTime, but I don't see any good reason why changes cannot be effected in gloranthan RealTime too. The existance of two temporal dimensions is part of what makes Glorantha unique. >When I first heard the theory that perhaps some of the demigod-like beings >at the battle of Castle Blue were actually heroquesters coming back in time >to influence the past, I immediately didn't like the whole idea. The fact that such evidence appears in the background to Glorantha surely makes time travel more reasonable. Time travel is refuted in the real world because, if it was ever possible, we would expect visits from time travellers and strange paradoxical effects such as people appearing in history from nowhere, or folks vanishing from history because their past is destroyed. It's apparent that in Glorantha this sort of thing *does* happen (Who was that seventh Lightbringer?) so time travel is less of a paradox. >I am perfectly happy using even the hint of time travel purely as a >dramatic device. Absolutely. This is how it should be used. Just because I'm prepared to speculate about the mechanics of time travel doesn't mean that I advocate players exploiting it on an everyday basis. Quite the opposite. Methodical exploitation of Heroquesting is dangerous for Glorantha. Methodical exploitation of time travel would be more so. Both are best left well alone by sane and sensible people. (Sadly, most Heroquesters are either insane or ill-informed IMO; even the best intended plans to "save the world" can result in catastrophe when mortals dabble in this sort of thing. Best leave well enough alone.) ___ CW. --------------------- From: crawford@explorer.clark.net (D.Schubert) Subject: Shamans and Orlanthi society Message-ID: Date: 3 Dec 93 07:53:51 GMT X-RQ-ID: 2540 Well, after almost 10 years of being away from Glorantha, I'm running my Sartar campaign again. I've been reading lots of backround material and have found GoG, Glorantha, KoS, ToTRM, and the RQ-Daily to be of great help. I still have many questions about Sartar and hope for the day when Sartar Pack is finally published. Until then I'll just have to fill in the gaps. One question I have that really bugs me is this: what is the relationship between Shamans and Orlanthi society? What role do Shamans play in the clan and in the Cult? Do cults have their own shamans? In the Greydog Inn article in ToTRM #5 a reference is made to the leader of the Hillhaven clan, Bofrost, crafty Shaman of Umath. In GoG p18 it states that spirit spells are learned by summoning a cult spell spirit via the spellteaching divine spell, as specified by the priests. So what role DO shamans have? I've always pictured Orlanthi society as having "progressed" beyond the shaman stage into a larger institutionalization of religion with a bureaucracy, priesthood, etc. Baboons, on the other hand, would still be on the level of the Shaman, not yet having developed a priesthood/cult/religion institution. Please help clarify this important issue!!! :-) David Schubert --------------------- From: eosgg@raesp-farn.mod.uk (Geoff Gunner) Subject: Glorantha Council Message-ID: <9312031906.AA28426@raesp-farn.mod.uk> Date: 3 Dec 93 19:06:06 GMT X-RQ-ID: 2541 Joerg writes about getting some serious activity done on compiling RQ material. I for one would be glad to shove in my oar. As for what format ANYTHING on Glorantha should be, it's got to be a straight ASCII text file. It's most portable, and if you want something fancy done with it, write an output formatter. As for profits, copyrights, etc, if possible make it free. As soon as you add a price, distribution will drop. If it's price-tagged, no internet, therefore even lower distribution. And the aim's to distribute Glorantha material, right? Spread the word about the One True Way of roleplaying ? :-) If it's already in publication, then just reference it if it's a substantial body of info. Otherwise, what's the copyright on paraphrasing (like getting an ACCURATE timeline from all the sources ?). I think that would be a damn good place to start. A timeline's possibly one of the most useful bits of reference material out. Look at the contradictions in what we've already got. It would show us what sort of problems are likely to crop up, how to go about accumulating data, how to edit responsibly, how to ultimately resolve contradictions, and so on. Anyone for it ? And interesting point there about 'Do we need Greg Stafford's approval'. Yup, it would be nice, but it seems Greg's trying to get out of being the ultimate authority. So why not respect that, and become a *Democracy* (Whoever shouts loudest, wins) ? So - what's the other strength of feeling out there ? Geoff. --------------------- From: f6ri@midway.uchicago.edu (charles gregory fried) Subject: Heroquesting Message-ID: Date: 3 Dec 93 19:39:04 GMT X-RQ-ID: 2542 Greg Fried here. My thanks to all those who wrote in about heroquesting. I feel more or less ready now to GM a HQ session this weekend now! Roland (I think you asked about this), there is indeed a Yelorna write-up, but it is to be found in the now tragically out of print Big Rubble pack. --------------------- From: nrobinso@sirius.UVic.CA (Neil Robinson) Subject: Encyclopedia and Non-gloranthan RQ Message-ID: <42334.nrobinso@sirius.uvic.ca> Date: 3 Dec 93 19:45:26 GMT X-RQ-ID: 2543 In X-RQ-ID 2512, Joerg discusses an encyclopedia.. I think it is a good idea. Too often, I have been unable to find the necessary information in a timely manner. I would love to be able to do a search on the Pure Horse Tribe, for example, and get a listing of where to look, if not seeing the data itself. Aren't there full-context search engines out there? I'd like a hyper-text engine, but adding in all the links would be a lot of work. A friend is currently setting up a simple database, but the entry time is emmense. I am willing to put some time in to developing, or discussing such a system (once any potential legal problems are sorted out). Neil Robinson | "Never underestimate the power of human nrobinso@sirius.uvic.ca | stupidity." - L. Long 2996 Dysart Rd. Victoria B.C. V9A 2K2 (604) 385-1642