RE: Telmori of Sartar to appear in my game from Norbert Franz on 2005-03-27 (HeroQuest RPG)

From: Norbert Franz <norbert.franz1_at_...>
Date: 27 Mar 2005 00:47 GMT

"Jane Williams" <janewilliams20_at_...> wrote:

>> I have continued writing down some ideas, including a 
>> new player-character Keyword, for the Telmori.

>
> I seem to remember recommending the web page
> www.telmori.com in previous messages -

Thank you, Jane. I know about that. I bookmarked the telmori.com site and I check it regularly from now on for Thomas' stories and legends.
I didn't find much there to contradict my game stats (and in HQ, "game stats" means that you decide on a more or less given set of abilities, and extrapolate from there). For what a big wolf does and has, I just took the Big Wolf information from HQ, pg. 220.

> I'd suggest that if you can, you also take a look at
> the old RQ supplement, "Dorastor", which had a RQ cult
> writeup for the Telmori of that area. Much will now be
> out of date, of course, but it could be useful [...]

Sure, thank you.
I actually have a copy of Dorastor on a bookshelf somewhere, but I think mine is still shrinkwrapped. :-)

> Even the cursed ones aren't humans cursed to turn
> into wolves, they're shapechangers cursed to lose
> control of their shape-changing ability on Wildday.

That's understood.

>>  - Are Telmori able to interbreed, and if so, with 
>>  whom?

>
> According to "Dorastor", "marriage with an outsider is > considered to be beastiality, and is forbidden on pain
> of death". Later it says that the same goes for having
> sex without getting married. That would seem to be
> a "yes, but" :)

Oh, I see. Pretty drastic stuff then ... Not that this will affect my campaign any time soon, but it's good to know about the general feel of Wolfmen societies.

> However, wolves (non-shapechanging ones) are considered > Telmori. So that isn't even interbreeding, it's just
> breeding.
>

I found that out by checking Thomas' Telmori articles in Tradetalk #7. Non-shapechanging wolves are always Telmori, just four-legged ones.

>> [...]  I could make something up, of course. Maybe 
>> there is a 50% chance the child would develop the 
>> Telmori traits later.

>
> This sounds like a potential PC?

Potentially, yes. We'll see.

> Apparently there's a method of being adopted into the
> Telmori and having your soul converted into that of a
> wolf, but it's highly dangerous [...]
>
> Using the Puma People as a model sounds like a good bet
> to me. Or any other HQ/HW writeup on Hsunchen you can
> find.

All right, done that. ;-)

> Dorastor again: "heinous crimes of vile deeds, such
> as.... using foreign magic.... exiled from the cult and
> the tribe..."
>
> [...] Though I wonder if among the Sartarite Telmori,
> there are followers of the hero-cult of Sartar?
> (Storm Tribe, p242)

Hmmm, ... I'm going to try to work that into my text.

Norbert