I assume you mean "someone who qualifies as a *disciple*"? Because I don't recall running across the term "rune lord" anywhere in HQ.
As I understand it, many of the titles we associated with Rune Lords in RQ days (like "Storm Khan", "Sword of Humakt", "Death Lord", "Karrg's Son", etc.) are used in different ways in HQ. Most commonly, they seem to be used for someone who's learned the Cult Secret in the appropriate cult, but sometimes they're used for a disciple (who are, I gather, *very* rare), and sometimes they're just an administrative title--e.g. I expect any Humakti who leads a warband is called a "Sword", however far along his magic is.
I might also speculate that even in RQ days, Rune Lords were pretty rare--far more common in games than they were in Glorantha as a whole.
Powered by hypermail