I just joined the list and have been reading the archives -- great
stuff everybody! Really impressive and imaginative; glad I don't have
to do any work, myself... ;)
As a GM who formerly ran a long-running RQIII campaign, and one who
is considering starting up a Hero Wars campaign for some of the same
people, let me say that there is much material to boggle the mind on
this list:
[RE: Orlanth on the Lightbringers' Quest...]
>Orlanth, the poor sap saddled with the
>Active role, has to perform a thousand antics to prove himself.
Orlanth as a "poor sap" would have set some of my old players to
frothing at the mouth! And of course, would have brought an evil
chuckle to myself in the process.
A couple of questions, while I'm posting:
- In the old supplements and (IIRC) KoS, when the Lunars make
Orlanth-worship illegal, the Sartarites take to the worship of
Barntar as a thinly-disguised version of Orlanth. With the HW rules
in hand, it seems that people are called to the gods, not vice-versa.
Will that mean that the old Barntar-worship will be/is gregged? Or is
this merely a sop to the Lunars performed by the god-talkers of
Sartar en masse? ("No, we're no longer making sacrifices to
Orlanthcarl the Farmer! That would be illegal! We're with Barntar
now! If you're looking for scoundrels who would so *contemptuously*
violate Lunar law, may I direct your attention to the Roast Turkey
clan, there? Just between you and me, I think their chieftain has a
stash of gold buried under his house that he managed to hide from the
tax collectors! Why, yes, we have been feuding with them, now you
mention it...")
- When a hsunchen uses his Shapechange talent, does he/she actually
change form completely to the animal in question? The example in that
section with the Telmori implies that this is not necessarily the
case; I don't have my book handy right now, but I believe it says
something like, "If the candidate is found worthy, Telmor will imbue
him with the spirit of a wolf, or, since the character comes from
Dragon Pass, a werewolf." Can the hsunchen use the Shapechange talent
then to only change part of his/her shape, as with the integrated
spirits, but with the benefit of being able to do it in new ways?
- Is it possible for someone to sacrificially worship, say, Kolat,
yet be an initiate to Orlanth? How about temporary ecstatic worship
of a local Great Spirit (the Deer Spring Woman, or Deskartha's Year-
while maintaining theistic worship of a deity? [Even if this is
possible, I imagine it is the exception instead of the rule.]
- How do the husband-protectors of Ernalda fit into the Heortling
Ernalda cult, say, in Esrolia? I recall that Esrolia is supposed to
be kind of a Heortling-like culture where the gender roles have been
reversed at the leader and ruler level. I would suppose that her cult
would be approximately similar, but am confused as to how to fit the
husband-protectors into it.
- What happened to associate gods? No more lending powers to the
other gods in your pantheon, I see. Or is this still practiced
somehow, and I've overlooked it? This would drastically affect the
powers of some of the old RQIII gods and the shape of their cults,
since some of them depended heavily on other gods to beef up
otherwise small selections of powers, i.e. Pavis, with his elemental
affiliations. Or is this being changed to a new understanding, where
these connections and stolen powers are being made more integrally a
part of the cult?
Sorry for the wordy post.
Roland