This session went longer than my first one and it is going to become a monthly or bimonthly campaign. There were four players, with two others interested but unable to make it this time. One player was familiar with Glorantha.
I created a Ghost Apple (name subject to change) clan in the hills just outside the Ormsgone Valley before the Lunar invasion (yes, their clan lands will be inside the Glowline eventually). The experienced player had already chosen Orlanth Adventurous, second son of the Orlanth Lawspeaker clan ring member. The two women in the group asked about whether they had to be homemakers like the majority. I explained that they didn't; both chose Hunter keywords, one Odaylan, one Yinkini. The Odaylan devotee sees Odayla in her (yes, her) aspect of the protector/hunter mother bear and already hates Harrek (such ambition so early). The Yinkini initiate is still debating about adding Mischievous to the list of things and has aspirations toward serving/being the Lady of the Wild. The other inexperienced player chose a Kolating who looks weird (old weird Harold for those in the know) and wants to belong. As you should be able to tell, we spent a lot more time in character creation. I used the quick start list method again (everyone was daunted by the prospect of the narrative method, but that's not surprising to me).
The players seemed to take to the vagueness of the feats well enough after a few iterations of me explaining that all of us would be winging it.
After the extensive character creation, we had time to flash back to their initiation into the tribe. Everyone but the OA choose Heort's path (taken from Jane Williams' website) and the OA chose The Initiation of Orlanth (same source; I gave him three NPC companions). I read the appropriate myth from KoS as though read by the Lawspeaker and they ended up on the Hero Plane as the tale ended. Everyone got a -5 for being five years younger and the devotee was only an initiate. Here's where I deviated in a big way from canon: I didn't shred the Kolating for being on the Hero Plane. (I gave him only a further -5 represented by several wind spirits trying to pull him the heck out of there.) I will probably have a separate post on this, but it boils down to my feelings that Theism and Animism aren't that different compared to Sorcery and especially Mysticism. I'll probably settle for being a heretic over this.
Everyone survived and got to drink full-strength beer, even the Odaylan and the Yinkini. Along the way, we discovered just how pathetic one's chances were to do anything when having no appropriate skills (I was very generous with allowing other characters to leap to the aid of one another.) I also decided that the initiation rituals tap into a "near" Hero Plane that is less dangerous (though death is still possible), something like the "nearer" Dreamlands in my and others' CoC games that is more Earth-like and less alien.
*****Spoiler for Heort's Path HQ from Jane Williams' website:
In the I Fought We Won section, the Kolating who was the most scared of fighting kicked butt on several Broo due to rolling several 1s, but the combat took forever (this is the part that reminded me of D&D).
*****Spoiler over.
Those who used extended contests all chose to bid low (3-6 AP) and let me describe the results. One player was pretty unimpressed with the intrusiveness of the multiple die rolling (to be fair, I generally run dice-lite GURPS) and everyone seemed confused by the concept of augmentation for a while. Next time, I'll hand out a subset of the rules synopsis.
I handed out HP based on what the characters excelled at/tried on the Other Side. Everyone except the Kolating received 1 HP that could be used on a limited number of abilities. The Kolating received 2 HP toward Close Combat for reasons explained in the spoiler above. I then gave out 3 more HP. I like this because it gives the players more reasons to work together, more shared history, and a chance to further customize their starting characters. (I would definitely have let certain actions doom a character on the Other Side though; it wasn't a cake walk.)
That's about it. As with the last time, I'll send questions separately (it may be until next week for some of them too). Michael, you'll probably see a longer write-up in A&E.
An interesting quote (paraphrase):
OA player responding to Yinkini player who was explaining that they had probably slept together and that she (the PC) had Seduce and Feel No Guilt feats: "Well, (looking over abilities) I definitely don't want to use Burst of Speed in such a situation. Look, I can Run Over Mud!"
Thanks,
Andy
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