"Meaning" and "Personality Traits" for other runes...

From: Tim <tim_at_...>
Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2012 17:09:28 -0000

I'm making some notes to help guide Gloranthan neophytes through Character Creation for the Colymar Campaign, and I notice that some of the "condition" and "special" runes were sort of glossed over in the core rulebook, so I'd like to "fill in" the "meaning" and "Personality Traits", so that if someone decides to play, for example, a Lhankor Mhy scholar, they will have some basic idea of what the Law rune represents when deciding if they want to take it as one of their 3 core runes.  

My initial thoughts are below - please chip in with your own ideas, and point out any you think I have wrong

These Runes are all linked to cults in Sartar:KoH, or The Sartar Companion, so seem to be more likely to be taken

Law
Meaning: Cosmic Law, Logic, Order
Personality Traits: Literal, Logical
(query - Is their any relationship between the Law rune and (the concept of) Justice, if so then Just would presumably be a Law rune trait?)

Eternal Battle
Meaning: Anti-Chaos, (Berserk Warrior)
Personality Traits: Rage, Short-Tempered

Yinkin
Meaning: Yinkin, Cat, (hunter)
Personality Traits: Sensual, Pleasure seeker, Indipendent, Charismatic

Spirit
Meaning: Discorporate beings
Personality Traits: Disconnected, "Crazy"

Odayla (bear)
Meaning: Bear
Personality Traits: Anti-social, solitary

S:KoH also suggests "common" Condition runes would include Magic and Beast. Beast is partially covered by Yinkin and Odayla - I'm tempted to ignore any others and if someone expresses a strong desire to follow some other beast rune, come up with some suitable traits in conjunction with their concept

The core rulebook says of Magic "Almost redundant in this magic-rich world" which sounds like you can just ignore it, but goes on "Since it is impossible to deal with the runes without magic, it means much. The symbol also has a much deeper meaning, denoting an individual's "personal power."" Which makes it sound very important (and straight to the top of any power-gamers list.) My preference would be to miss it off the list of "common" runes and not worry about it.

The Core Rulebook lists the Plant rune with no personality traits - not a common Orlanthi rune, but I can see someone playing a farmer might think this a useful rune?

I'm not worried about Moon or Chaos, since they are not legitimate options for Orlanthi

The only other "core runes" that date back to RQ are Luck and Fate, which are seen as more minor runes now - they are mentioned in the core rulebook but without further elaboration

Luck
Meaning: Luck, Fortune, Chance
Personality Traits:

Fate
Meaning: Fate, Destiny, Wyrd
Personality Traits:

I'm tempted to say that the traits for Luck are Cheerful, and for Fate are Grim, Morose on the basis that even though someone ruled by Luck may find that their luck is sometimes bad, things tend to turn out for the best in the long run, and even if someone's fate matches their desire, the inescapable grind of destiny will lead to a more solemn temperament...