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, 11 Nov 1994, part 2
Sender: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM
Content-Return: Prohibited
Precedence: junk
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From: rowe@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU (Eric Rowe)
Subject: Runequest Adventures Fanzine 4 is out.
Message-ID: <199411110402.UAA06241@soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 10 Nov 94 12:02:35 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6889
Thought I'd pass this along in case John forget to post it here too.
Issue 4 of RQ Adventures is hot off the press and now availble in North
America. Subscribers will have their issues mailed out this week.
Check with your local distributer for availability in your part of the
world.
Issue 4 is 36 pages + cover and features:
Background on the city of Whitewall; Scenario during the fall of
Whitewall; Sartar plants; After Taxes scenario by John E. Boyle;
Orlanthi cameos; Player characters & more!
RQ Adventures
2006 22nd Ave
San Francisco CA 94116
email: grendel@sfsu.edu
RQA is published 2-3 times a year and 36+ pages plus cover.
Subject matter is Gloranthan RQ with a special emphasis on adventures.
Single issues $5.00US for North America
$7.00US foreign(please see distributer list before order)
Checks/money orders payable to John Castellucci
Orders shipped via US Airmail
#1 Escape from Duckland, et. al. --- Only a few left in U.S.
#2 Dreams Dragons Bring, et. al. --- OUT OF PRINT IN U.S.!!!
#3 The Block, Devil's Swamp, et. al. --- Only a few left in U.S.
#4 The Fall of Whitewall, et. al.
Coming soon...
Best of RQA vol 1 -- highlights of the first 3 issues, dec 94
#5 Dorastor -- winter 94/95
Foreign Distribution Inquiries
Joerg Baumgartner, Europe (joe@sartar.toppoint.de)
Andrew Bean, Down Under (abean@geel.dwt.csiro.au)
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From: sandyp@idcube.idsoftware.com (Sandy Petersen)
Subject: Re: stuff
Message-ID: <9411101648.AA02674@idcube.idsoftware.com>
Date: 10 Nov 94 05:42:37 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6882
Colin Wilson
> As I see it there are two issues:
> #1/ What it takes to bind a spirit
> #2/ What you can do with the spirit when it's in a binding
enchantment.
Tragically, here I must take issue with Colin. I believe that
the use you can make of spirits is NOT part of their binding
enchantment, and that all binding enchantments are much the same. The
differences between Intellect, Power, and Magic spirits I believe to
be part of the spirits themselves, some inherent variation in their
genus. The original intent of the rules change in RQ III making
different types of spirits was to have a diverse spirit fauna, and
having different kinds of "Bindings" isn't the same at all, merely
muddlig the issue.
>The current rules imply that the use of MP/INT/spells is a peculiar
>quirk of the spirit itself which only manifests when the spirit is
>bound. That's what I don't like. It's too contrived.
In the first place, I see no reason why the use of Power and
Intellect spirits "only manifests when they're bound". My shamans use
them all the time, including them in their fetch. Since when you use
a Power or Intellect (or Magic spirit for that matter), you don't
have to unleash it from your fetch in some sort of attack, I play
that shamans can quite contentedly hold them till the cows come home.
No doubt there's something that Power and Intellect spirits
can do on the spirit plane that we don't normally have use for in the
"real world". I have some suggestions along those lines.
I believe that Power spirits have the ability to drain MPs
out of the loser in a spirit combat (and the reverse is also probably
true -- beating a Power spirit in spirit combat allows the victor to
drain its MPs to restore his own). Now, normally when you beat a
spirit, its MPs are at 0, so this ability is useless. But since I
play that reducing a spirit to 10 points less than your own MPs
counts as a "win" for purposes of binding, possessing, and even
covertly possessing the victim, if a Power spirit was very strong it
could use this ability in an interesting way. The small Power spirits
we normally encounter are presumably "baby" ones, or fragments of
stronger ones.
I believe that when a person "forgets" a spirit spell (or a
sorcery spell for that matter), it doesn't just go away -- this would
violate the Gloranthan law of Conservation of Magic. Instead,
Intellect spirits "absorb" such a spell, incorporating it into their
mind. Then they transport it back to the source of such magic, where
it can be re-incorporated into a spell spirit or whatever. Thus they
are a part of the Gloranthan magic ecology. Their ability to hold
spells which others can use is simply a useful side effect.
Mark Hansen:
>Who is Urox?
He is Storm Bull.
>Who is Gagarth, the Wild Hunter?
He is NOT a hunter cult. He is a cult of outlaws and bad
guys, but non-chaotic. He has a spell that can be cast on a steed to
enable it to run through the air with the wind. He also has power
over whirlvishes. He is an enemy of Orlanth, though he is also
Orlanth's nephew. He is somewhat more friendly to Storm Bull, but
many right-thinking Storm Bull's have no truck with such bandits.
>What is the darkened square Rune for Babeester Gor?
It is the Earth Rune (malign). The open square is the Earth
Rune (benign). The Earth Rune is a basically dualistic Rune, and so
all earth gods get only one or the other Rune, but whichever one you
have, it's the "full" Earth Rune. The God Learners only used one of
the Runes and didn't bother to have a different Rune for benign and
malign.
>why are some of the Runes shown twice?
This demonstrates that the holder of that Rune is the Source
of that Rune to all Glorantha, and that if that deity were somehow to
be destroyed, all Glorantha would be forever changed.
>Do Ernalda initiates stick with the Grain Goddess they originally
worshiped? Or do they change when they move to a new region?
Normally they change. They're automatically considered
initiates of the new goddess, after all.
THOUGHTS ON MALKIONI
In thinking over the principles of Malkioni marriage, I have
reached the following conclusions, supported, I believe, by earlier
debate on the subject.
Item: Men can marry women from a lower caste. This transforms
said woman into that higher caste. I.e., the wife of a Wizard becomes
wizard-rank -- even if she's not allowed to learn spells in her
lifetime, her daughters can.
Item: Women can NOT marry men from a lower caste. It's
immoral and wrong, and it's better to get thee to a nunnery.
Item: High-ranking women sometimes have trouble finding men
high-ranking enough to marry them.
Now, 'tis my belief that even WITHIN the four basic castes,
there are recognized "subranks". That is, a lowly clerk or military
sorcerer, though wizard-caste, is NOT considered to be anywhere near
as mighty as an ordained Bishop or court wizard, and the daughter of
a Bishop would NEVER marry a clerk. Plus she couldn't marry a farmer
or a knight of any kind. She could probably marry a noble, but her
family would be upset if she wed any but a reasonably high-ranking
noble.
As some of us know, England once fought a civil war largely
over the fact that Richard (the Kingmaker) Neville's two daughters
couldn't find good husbands, because the grasping Woodville clan had
snapped up all the high-ranking eligible bachelors.
I don't think the Kingdom of Seshnela is anywhere near
fighting a civil war over something like this (but who knows?), but I
see some possibilities:
1) The PCs must escort a blushing bride to somewhere very far
away, where her arranged groom waits. Why so far? Because it's so
hard to find husbands, she had to arrange to marry someone in the far
reaches of Safelster or even Heortland. Maybe her rival in love
(another high-ranking woman of course) has hired opposition to the
expedition.
2) A young and ambitious nobleman aggressively engages in
treachery, war, and seigecraft in an attempt to enlarge his lands
enough to be worthy to marry a high-ranking woman -- maybe because of
love, maybe because he values the family connection.
3) A Bishop breaks all the rules to raise his protege in rank
fast enough to be qualified to marry his daughter. When his protege
gets to the appropriate rank, he balks. Now the Bishop seeks
vengeance.
More ideas no doubt can occur to you all, but it seems to me
that the difficulty of finding husbands for Wizards especially
(ESPECIALLY because many Rokari wizards are celibate, further
reducing the available husbandage!!!), can be the source of some
fascinating interactions.
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From: 100270.337@compuserve.com (Nick Brooke)
Subject: Mark's Answers
Message-ID: <941110205150_100270.337_BHL24-3@CompuServe.COM>
Date: 10 Nov 94 20:51:51 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6887
___________
Mark Hansen asked some nice questions:
> Who is Urox?
Urox appears to be an Orlanthi name of the god known as "Storm Bull" in previous
RuneQuest products. In the real world, Greg invented "Urox" for his book "King
of Sartar", published in winter 92/3: no previous product therefore knew that
the name existed. Given that, I'd have no problem if barbarian characters still
referred to their god as "the Storm Bull", as all our Gloranthan experience
shows that they do so. (It *would* cause a problem, for the converse reason, if
people tried to abolish the name of "Storm Bull" by replacing it with "Urox" at
every turn. Bad Alex.)
> How is Urox's myth history different than Storm Bull?
Speculations here have said he *probably* doesn't emphasise the Block so much in
his mythology, as that part of the story is irrelevant if you're non-literate
and nowhere near Prax. Apart from that, like *every* *other* *cult*, the
mythology, history and structure of Uroxi beliefs can vary as much as necessary
to suit the needs of your campaign. So if it helps your game to credit Urox with
Arkat's destruction of Dorastor, do it!
> What's the story on Gagarth, the Wild Hunter? How does he fit into the
> Praxian pantheon?
Gagarth is the outlaw of the gods, who scours the Plaines of Prax chasing the
lost souls who he drives before him in the Whirlvish dust-devils. The 'official'
Chaosium cult description was printed in Tales of the Reaching Moon issue #4,
and was posted in full to the RQ Daily some time last year (someone with better
archives than me may be able to quote you an issue, or forward the text). He's a
scary god only worshipped by Praxian bandits thrown out of the Way of Waha. (The
Orlanthi would almost certainly view him differently, not living in a desert:
you could borrow imagery from the Wild Hunt of our world, red-eared white hounds
and the like).
> Why isn't he mentioned that much?
Because he's a Bad God, and you shouldn't be copying him. Social deities are
more interesting and useful to mythologise about, as they tell us how we ought
to behave. Gagarth is an antisocial deity.
> What is the darkened square rune for Babeester Gor shown in GoG?
"Malign Earth", sometimes called "Dust". It means she's not nice.
> I get the feeling that there's more runes than are shown in the Deluxe
> rules, am I correct? Where can I get a more complete list?
There are a vast number of Runes, and we don't know about most of them. At
Convulsion this summer Greg confirmed that the ones we know about are only the
most common forms of the most common Runes: the tip of the ice- berg. The extra
ones in GoG are (briefly):
Communication (Argan Argar, Etyries, Issaries)
Luck (Asrelia)
Malign Earth (Babeester Gor, Gorgorma, Maran Gor, TKT)
Light (Dendara, Lokarnos, Yelmalio)
'Dragon' (Godunya, Immanent Mastery)
Shadow (Gorgorma)
'Hunger' (Krarsht)
Heat (Lodril)
'Pamalt' (Pamalt)
Fate (Ty Kora Tek)
Cold (Valind)
The 'Dragon' Rune may be a peculiarly Kralori form or expression.
The 'Hunger' Rune is also known as 'Undead' -- on first appearance it was
defined as this, before the generic concept was found more useful.
The 'Pamalt' Rune has been called 'Power', but this is so vague as to be almost
meaningless. It really means, "We God Learners don't know what it is, but
there's something different about the way magic works down South, and it's
probably something to do with the boss god."
Generally, 'Luck' is seen as a good thing (windfalls of prosperity) and 'Fate'
as bad (inevitable or undeserved problems cum limitations), though there is
nothing inherent in Glorantha to make this so.
But the Runes (as drawn in the rules) are only abstractions of the most common
symbols associated with powers and/or forces. You can draw an Eye Rune, or a
Wheel Rune, and a God Learner would say, "Aha! A variant form of the Sun Rune".
But who can say who is right? In our game, the Yanafali Death Rune is curved...
So while you already knew all the most important Runes, and you now know some
more, less important Runes, you'll never get a *complete* complete list.
> Why are some of the runes shown twice in the GoG cult descriptions?
Where a Rune is shown twice, it means that that god is the "owner" of the Rune.
This is a God Learnerish classification, meaning that the deity is so widely
associated with the Rune that anyone thinking of a Death god would rank it
against Humakt for deadliness; a Storm god against Orlanth for tempestuousness;
etc. The god exemplifies the current 'image' and/or manifestation of the Rune in
Glorantha. Check out RQ Deluxe's listing of Rune owners against the GoG
duplications. An Infinity Rune plus a single other means the god is and always
was the "owner". Glitches in the system show you shouldn't trust God Learners.
Rune owners have been called the Greater Gods, but this too is an invalid,
cross-cultural comparison that doesn't matter to anyone living in Glorantha. (It
used to matter to the God Learners, and some of their theories and
classifications still float around out there: but it's no part of proper
religion or belief).
> Do Ernalda initiates stick with the Grain Goddess they originally
> worshipped? Or, do they change grain goddesses when they move to a
> new region?
The Earth goddesses are famously flexible and transposable, though nobody will
thank me for posting the Short Discourse to this list again. They defy the God
Learner classifications; a single goddess can become Land Queen, Grain Goddess
and/or Earth Mother; Maiden, Mother and/or Crone; Benign and/or Malign;
depending on where you meet "her".
I think she would be puzzled if you tried to sacrifice another point of POW to
her just because you were living on a different part of her body and raising her
in a different form. Mind you, she wouldn't refuse it!
====
Nick
====
NB: all the above is Just My Opinion, others will validly differ. NB.
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