Glorantha gaming: Heroquests and Cows

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Glorantha gaming: Heroquests and Cows

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

I'm curious about how the new runequest works. I like percentile systems but from my limited experience with RQ the power level of your average PC is too low for what I'd want to do with the story. The Hero Wars are starting, but for now lets look at some mercenaries guarding a trade caravan who fight bandits, and get their arms chopped off by random crits. Maybe that's changed a bit, but I'd probably use the Heroquest system.

Also one day I'd love to do Around Glorantha in 80 Days, so you can cover way more of the setting than you'd usually get to do.

E: There's a new King of Dragon Pass game coming out soon, where you play as Hyalorings in the early days of the setting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXl7zCaRI9M

Wrestlepig fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Jun 12, 2018

# ¿ Jun 12, 2018 01:47

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 05:55

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

I picked up the new runequest and have some thoughts. I thought it was great overall, it definitely wears it's age on it's sleeve though.

It doesn't have any monster stats so you can't run the game with just it. I guess you just make soldiers with PC stats, but even then there's too much detail and you'd need more Lunar cult write-ups than just the Seven Mothers. Broos and Trolls are in the bestiary preview so you can work off that for those guys, at least. Also there's nothing on Heroquests so even if you tried to run it with the book you're missing out on that.
The Family History part of character creation is really cool. As well as generating some useful backstory, it places your characters in the world and helps introduce new people to the setting. They added a basic version to generate some passions if you want to get through it quickly or play as someone foreign
None of the backgrounds are super terrible, since you get a decent baseline in culture weaponry so you aren't useless in a fight, but it's probably not worth taking Farmer or similar. Watch out for Philosophers though, they get some starting access to sorcery
Stats are still randomly rolled, which is annoying when POW and CON are incredibly important and players may have an archetype in mind. It does have a sidebar of a bunch of ways to mitigate that but I'd definitely get a stat array or make everything 2d6+6 like SIZ and POW and let people assign where they want
POW is a pretty serious God Stat, appropriately enough. A high enough POW helps most skills a bit, but it's also a resource for advancing in your religion, your magic points for spirit magic and sorcery, hit points in spirit combat and is used for both attacking and defending a lot of magic. It's the main point of interaction for most of the game's really cool parts. You want as much of it as possible, even if you're going to sacrifice it to get more Rune Power. You effectively need 20 at the very least to become a rune-priest or god-talker. On a side note I have no idea why you need Charisma to be a Rune Lord, the skill gating is high enough and I don't want to stop people from painting themselves blue and flying around, blasting lightning everywhere
There are a lot of skills but it's not so bad with how Augmenting works. Definitely emphasize augmenting to your players, its very important for getting successes and advancing as characters. Watch out for Dancers because they're going to have some powerful magic. There's definitely a lot of cruft, like 3 different unarmed skills, Listen and Scan being seperate, Library Use and Funeral Rites in a book that mentions only rolling when it's interesting. A lot of them are specific to cults and cultures and should probably be blank spaces rather than there for everyone
You can augment rolls with passions and runes now, which is really handy in a pinch and helps integrate characterisation into play
Combat is really brutal, which I don't especially like as a concept because it butts up against the emphasis on being big heroes or the talk about Maximum Game Fun. I'd give people a bit more overall HP, since hit locations are a big thing and let you have serious physical consequences to getting hit without having the character die. There's explicitly no Fate points, which was unexpected after Call of Cthulu put them in. Easier access to Rune magic does mitigate this, pretty much everyone can heal and get magic armor. The actual rules are pretty good, aside from being a little more book-keepy than I'd usually like. I'd probably move the mention of Chalana Arroy resurrection up a bit as well, it's a useful stopgap. Dual wielding should also be cooler and a little less complicated imo, although it does get very good at higher skill ranks
Rune Magic has been overhauled to be more common and simplified. I'm not experienced with it in earlier editions, but looking at it now as a guy who has played D&D 5e, I'm a big fan of it. It's fairly even across characters, it's flavorful and powerful without being an absolute narrative breaker, and they had the genius decision to give really fundamental spells, like Heal, divination, and other cantripy things to basically everyone. The actual Rune Point economy is pretty tight and you increase it by sacrificing a stat, which isn't great, slows down advancement and makes it a really important stat for a lot of people.
Ernaldans love getting they titties out
I don't really know how the spirit stuff works, it was getting late when I was reading it. I'm kind of worried that spirit combat will be like Hacking in cyberpunk stuff where only one guy really interacts with it but I'm probably wrong. Cool art though
Sorcery is neat, although it's not emphasized much in the book and there's only one background that grants it and one cult that grants it. No Heathens allowed

Overall I think it's pretty cool, I'd play it, maybe with a HP increase, stat array and a buff to Ducks. I'm not sure I really can run a game until the bestiary and GM guide comes out though. Maybe it's backwards compatible with that stuff, who knows.

Wrestlepig fucked around with this message at 03:50 on Jun 14, 2018

# ¿ Jun 14, 2018 02:14

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

Bumping a thread to ask about encounter design. I had a look around online to get advice on planning a balanced combat encounter and the general consensus is that you don't. Is there a recommended benchmark for combat stats compared to players, or would I just say gently caress it and play by ear?

# ¿ Jul 14, 2018 07:18

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

does the bestiary come with human enemies to crib or is it just a stat-as-pcs deal because I hate that poo poo

# ¿ Jul 21, 2018 00:08

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

nomadotto posted:

One of the challenges I've found with trying to get folks together for a Glorantha-set game, is it's hard to give people enough of an info-dump that they can "get into" the fiction without having a huge amount of homework. Is that just the situation with the setting, or is there a good resource to point people to?

The new book is pretty good about handling it. Do a session zero for character creation, and start with a really basic explanation (bronze age fantasy, the gods are separated from us by Time and magic comes from there. The Orlanthi are barbarians who worship the Storm God Orlanth and the Earth Goddess Ernalda, and are at War with the Lunar Empire, who are like Mystic Romans that consort with Chaos) and go over the specifics as they come up in character creation. The book's focus on the anti-lunar alliance means you don't really need to go into detail about big history stuff since you don't really care about it at the start and can roll it in as you go.

I wrote an intro to the setting a while ago for an aborted heroquest game. some of the mechanic notes are specific to those mechanics. It's handy to share if someone's interested in the setting and wants to do some reading before the game starts, but players are lazy bastards who love to check their phones so you'll have to do it at the table

Josef bugman posted:

I always find setting up a clan beforehand helps as it gives lots of cool hooks. Then just lead into it whilst mentioning all the weirdness as it goes on.

The website has a quiz thing for forming a Sartarite clan from the creation of the universe to just about the start of the Runequest Ancestry stuff. The mechanical side isn't relevant, but it's a good way to form a detailed history. It's too much detail for first timers, though. You could introduce it later on if you want more on your clan.

Wrestlepig fucked around with this message at 00:18 on Jul 25, 2018

# ¿ Jul 25, 2018 00:11

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

ross the boss posted:

I really want to love the Heroquest rules but for some reason for it being billed as a rules-light game I just cannot understand them. Like the contest system just is confusing as hell to me. Maybe I'm just really dumb. Can someone explain it to me? For all of the examples in the book, they are never really clearly written.

It's not a well explained system, and I can't say I have it down perfectly, but essentially you roll under a relevant quality while your GM rolls against whatever difficulty is appropriate. Every 20 points gives you a level of mastery or weird M that upgrades your result for each one more than your opponent (A normal success becomes a crit, failure becomes a success, etc. Since you can't go higher than a crit, once you reach that point it downgrades your opponent's roll), and then you and the GM compare results on the chart. With a Simple Contest, you just do the one roll, like a standard skill check. If both rolls are the same level of success, the highest roll can act as a tiebreaker.

The other tests are harder to understand, but they all work on the same principle: A series of Simple Contests where winning gives you Resolution Points, which determine who wins at the end.

With group contests, everybody involved rolls and the GM rolls once for each. Depending on how well they did, they get some Resolution Points, and each side of the conflict adds all theirs together. The bigger the difference, the more of a success/failure it is.

Extended contests work in a similar way to the group contests, except it's one person doing opposed rolls multiple times. The first to 5 points wins rather than comparing sizes. You want to use Extended contests if the conflict needs more focus and has more narrative weight, rather than how mechanically complex it is like in other games.

Extended Group Contests are a little bit more confusing, but basically it's everyone doing an Extended Contest at the same time. Instead of comparing the sizes of results, the loser of the individual conflict is eliminated, and the winner can start engaging with other opponents and assisting other party members. Each extra opponent you're dealing with gives a -3 penalty to the stat being tested, so it really adds up.

I'm not entirely sure how Rising Actions work, but essentially it's a way to have harsher consequences for extended contests as you reach a climax, like the end of your session. Climactic consequences are an optional way to handle the end of the entire story, where you add up every resolution point scored against the PC and compare it to a chart to get a different set of consequences.

You can also Augment a roll with a different keyword. These tend to be a test at moderate difficulty, and modify a keyword's value depending on the result, kind of like assisting another player but you can also do it to yourself. There's also a Quick augment variant where you just divide the thing you're augmenting with by 5 and add it on, which I recommend although it's a little less dramatic. You only get one of these per Contest.

Keywords are easier to understand. They can be pretty much anything, and you roll under the number in the contests. Everything is categorized as a Keyword, from followers to gear. Some Keywords are Breakouts, which are more specific parts of a keyword that get higher numbers. There's penalties and benefits depending on how specific a keyword is, so stretching something to fit everything doesn't work super well. You need to be an initiate to use your Rune scores for anything other than Augments most of the time. Character creation is clear enough, at least.

You also get 3 Hero Points per session, which can be used to bump up a roll like you had another point of mastery, and to create and upgrade abilities (+2 to upgrade a basic form, +1 for a breakout or a new ability). I really recommend having the bump up a result thing count towards upgrading, so players don't have to pick between short and long term success.

There aren't any hit points, but defeats give you penalties to relevant keywords as you go. Successes can also give you Benefits of Victory, which temporarily upgrade a keyword a bit until you're defeated.

There's a few other bits and pieces but they aren't super important. It's definitely a hard system to understand, since a lot of it feels like it was written as a treatise on how to design and run a role-playing game focused on epic narratives, and it isn't rules light, just heavily abstract. That said, it's a good system for actually running an epic campaign that matches Glorantha's fluff without detailed rules on how throwing axes weigh down shields or how every fight involves constantly losing legs, once you get past the poorly explained rules. Also you really want to bring poker chips.

Wrestlepig fucked around with this message at 08:32 on Jul 31, 2018

# ¿ Jul 31, 2018 08:22

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

King of Dragon Pass is based on the canonical migration to Dragon Pass and the rise of Sartar. He�s the guy who went through all the endgame quests. Sartar�s the name of the first king and they named the kingdom after him.

Wrestlepig fucked around with this message at 13:52 on Aug 4, 2018

# ¿ Aug 4, 2018 13:50

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

Nanomashoes posted:

Are there any heroquests with a part for Maran Gor? I can't really find any in old edition books. I'm playing an initiate of her and I've been combing books for mentions of any deeds she's done that could maybe be made into one but all I have are:

1)Defending Ernalda during the dark age, probably similar to Elmal Guards the Stead
2)Has a fight with Hippogryph and smashes her legs into hooves.

She tends to be an antagonist in most myths so there's not really much. I found a fan write-up for heroquest that gives a decent overview of her story and all you'd need to do is to give part of it a little more focus. Or you could make something up, which you'll probably have to do anyway. Something about fighting a Dragon and becoming The Mother of Quakebeasts comes to mind for Dinosaur Powers.

quote:

Mythos and History
Maran was born in the green age, along with her sisters, and was given rulership over the greatest powers of Earth. She took many lovers, and produced many children, these being the mighty quakebeasts of legend, which shook the earth as they walked. Maran loved her children, whose thundering movement brought joy to her heart, no matter the destruction they caused.
In the Stagnant Age, the Evil Emperor came to power. He saw the quakebeasts as pests, and commanded his warriors to destroy them. Jagrekriand and Vestkarthan destroyed many of them, including the new warlike quakebeasts Maran shaped to defend the others from the Fire Tribe. Seeing so many of her children slain, Maran took up her mace, and marched to destroy the fire tribe. From then on, the goddess knew no joy.
The remaining quakebeasts were no longer as many, nor as great, but Maran loved them all the same. Then the Elves came, claiming that the beasts destroyed their forests and destroyed all they found. Maran shaped some of them into enormous shapes, who fed on trees as a cow feeds on hay. The elves sold themselves to the godless sorcerer Seravus for aid, who provided an army of men-who-were-animals to fight the giant quakebeasts. Maran avenged her children with the aid of Finovan the raider, and slew the sorcerer's son with a single mighty blow of her club.
When the great darkness came, the remaining quakebeasts were no match for the armies of ice and troll, who froze and devoured the last quakebeasts. Maran wept tears of blood, before coating herself in black blood and taking up her great axe and marching on the ice demons and the trolls. She slew countless monsters, men and gods, until the trolls relented, and promised her worship in exchange for letting them survive. Maran relented, but from then on, the goddess knew no love.
When Nontraya came for Ernalda, Maran saw she could not protect her sister from his ways, and slew Ernalda to save her from being dishonoured. In the end Maran slew all the world to protect it from the ravages of Chaos, until there was no one left to protect her from Tekakos the stillness. When he confronted her, she did not resist, and went to the Underworld to meet her kin.
When she met her sisters, they once again vowed their bonds of sisterhood, granting Maran the strength to provide life to her sisters, who used this power to return life to the entire world.

http://zzabursbrownbook.blogspot.com/2015/02/maran-shaker-goddess.html

you can also do heroquests of gods you don't worship, although you probably wouldn't know the secrets behind it and you might not be a good match. You can probably manage Babeester Gor fighting Zorak Zoran and even some Troll heroquests.

Wrestlepig fucked around with this message at 06:08 on Aug 12, 2018

# ¿ Aug 12, 2018 06:03

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

With the Heroquest system, a heroquest just works like everything else, with the option of a Heroquest Challenge to gamble one of your abilities for something new at a higher level with an extended contest. I'm pretty sure it's the same with Runequest, although I'm not really familiar with the GMing side of it.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2018 23:40

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

Nanomashoes posted:

The game says you can heroquest during sacred time so it would be weird not to do it!

Anyways how the heck are you supposed to get enough POW to be a rune priest considering your chance of succeeding at a POW gain roll goes down every time? To get it up to 18, the last roll will be a 1/5 chance. That's gonna take forever at my current rate of success (Four failures at 50% chance).

it's pretty badly done and designed for long-rear end campaigns. I think there's supposed to be ways to increase your POW with heroquests and magical stuff, but there's none of that in the core book. Also you effectively need 20 since you have to burn some for Rune Points, which you should do as early as possible.

It's even worse for Rune Lords. The skills are rough but mainly charisma is hard as balls to increase, especially if you aren't using the optional boost stuff.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2018 00:14

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

Nanomashoes posted:

I wrote out a Maran Gor heroquest for her taking control of the dinosaurs, here it is if anyone wants to read it:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RrJ0U60WK15dbZIij9XMXYwvo1ywCoCRt5PdLj2Wi20/edit?usp=sharing
We ran it today and it all went smoothly, I got a dinosaur to mount, but the Yelmali in our party screwed up her station a bit and had to accompany me on the rest of the quest, meaning that he wasn't there to watch over the stead for a little and chaos got into the Tula. It's not my character's tula though, so she could care less.

This is really good, you did an excellent job presumably bringing together the party for the quest

# ¿ Aug 27, 2018 01:28

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

Handy Google drive character generator for Runequest. You need to Make a Copy to your own google drive so you can edit

further instructions here

# ¿ Sep 4, 2018 11:33

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

Kanthulhu posted:

I'll be GMing Heroquest and I've read all the rules in the Core Book by now but I think I'm having a hard time grasping how combat is suposed to work. I've been playing rpgs were you roll to see if you hit and then roll to see the damage since I'm like 8 years old so I guess it's hard to get out of that mindset. Any good tips to make interesting combats in Heroquest?

give different goals for different participants in the contest, and have a few extra opponents around to complicate things and get some strategy going.

Mimir posted:

I�ve been thinking about Blades Glorantha a fair bit lately. I�d probably have it with a long-term project first for heroquests to represent getting the cult/sacrifices together.

when I played around with it for a short time because writing essays sucks, I started redesigning Stress as the character's Magic resource, where they enhance their ability by channeling magic or having supernatural effects, which worked pretty well as a middleground between Heroquest's abstraction and Runequest's resource-focused approach. I wasn't exactly sure about what to do for pumping up the magic since insanities don't really work. I was thinking of it making you increasingly heroic, tied to the Gods and distanced from the community, and reduced by engaging in regular human life. I never really got further than that because writing essays sucks, and I wasn't sure about how to integrate Shamanism and Sorcery into that framework, which would probably be separate classes.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2018 23:44

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

I found an incredibly useful cheat sheet for Heroquest if anyone needs help getting the rules, or just wants them all clearly written in one place

Friar John posted:

It is awesome to see this again. I'm looking through the Guide again after a long time, and contemplating Vormain as the setting for a pbp game. But man, besides the pirates there really isn't a lot tying Vormain to the rest of Glorantha. Even their Hero Wars Begin blurb is just that they start trying to take over the East Isles for some unknown reason! That's mundane as hell, imo. Unless they're conquering that stuff to get ready for an invasion of Kralorela, it doesn't really feel Hero Wars-ish. Conquering bits of the East Isles is Tuesday. If anyone has any fan write ups for Vormaino stuff, I'd love to see it!

I had a look and couldn't really see anything that wasn't in the guide. There was originally plans to develop some sort of unique color-based magic but that never got details. They've also got the Kralorea issue where they're too isolationist and too similar to a real-world culture. I think they're only really usable as a bad guy for an Eastern campaign unless you're wanting to do a lot of legwork, which is a shame since barracuda samurai pirates who can run on water and turn their ships into sea monsters are dope.

E: maybe the issue is if you want to be a samurai you just be a humakti

Wrestlepig fucked around with this message at 23:35 on Sep 9, 2018

# ¿ Sep 9, 2018 23:12

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

excellent adventure for doing an Orlanthi initiation heroquest as a starting adventure

# ¿ Oct 2, 2018 12:12

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

Officially no, although your Glorantha will vary. If you've got a good reason for a man to join instead of Humakt or whatever, go for it. You could say that anyone joining the cult spiritually counts as a woman, like the reverse of Orlanth and Vinga. It probably wouldn't matter much since Axe Sisters are really connected to the Death Rune and don't get involved in most of the standard Ernalda ceremonies beyond guarding them, so they wouldn't be learning Women's Secrets they shouldn't know.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2018 04:25

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

Iirc there are human worshipers of zorak zoran, either as hardcore followers of Arkat, berserkers from troll-influenced lands or real psychos. It wouldn�t be unimaginable to have a clan that worshiped Zorak Zoran in the great Darkness.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2018 03:28

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

Your Glorantha Will Vary, adding stuff like a human clan with a Zorak Zoran tradition is encouraged.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2018 06:07

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

The trolls have pretty amazing insect gods in Aransas and Gorakiki, which have spells that let you grow extra arms and insect bits, but i don�t think there�s anything for Bees. Easiest way to make one would be tweaking Erithia and treating Bees as the herd beast, as well as adding some cool stuff because she�s a pretty boring god.

Further poking around led me to a tribe of Bee worshippers in the holy Country that worship a god called Enra, but there's no info on them aside from having conflict with far more fleshed-out wasp riding pygmies. Also a dead people in Pamaltela called the Jalosi who had weapons made of solid honey.

Wrestlepig fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Nov 2, 2018

# ¿ Nov 2, 2018 20:29

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

trying my hand at some homebrew after some discussion on a discord

quote:

Gladiator Occupation
Gladiatoral combat is widespread in Glorantha, as both a form of entertainment and ritual sacrifice. A famous gladiator is revered as a heroic figure by many, and straddle the line between entertainer and warrior. The Slave-Gladiators of Fonrit�s Fighting Pillars, Bloodsport Champions in the Kingdom of Ignorance, the Safelstran Avatar Duelists that fight fake matches as rituals, worldly martial artists in Kralorea, Lunar champions of Natha and the undefeated Puppeteer Troupe�s flamboyant boxer only known as Babyface are all examples of Gladiators in Glorantha.

Esoteric Weaponry
Gladiators frequently use individualized and eccentric weaponry to make their performances more interesting. Rather than pick off a list, pick 3 weapons (counting shields and Martial Arts as weapons) to be your weapons for the purposes of skills. Classic choices include Trident and Net, dual-wielding blades and unarmed combat techniques, although cultural and religiously significant weapons are popular.

Occupational Skills: Esoteric Weapons +30%, Orate+20%, Intimidate+15% Insight (Human)+10%, Ride Chariot+20%, Battle +10%.

Favored Passions: Honor, Loyalty (Fans) or Hate (Boss).

Typical Cults: Humakt, Orlanth Adventurous, Seven Mothers (particularly Danfive Xaron or Yarnafal Tarnils), Zorak Zoran, Shargash, Artmal, other gods of Death, Luck or Fate

Living Standards: independent Gladiators are Free, Slaves are Poor.

Ransom: 500 L.
Equipment: Ornate Heavy Armor covering 4 different hit locations (Absorb 5, ENC 1 per limb, 2 for others, Greaves, Chest and Abdomen give -15 Move Quietly each), chosen weapons, 1d4 distinctive scars, 30L in coins, gifts from fans worth 3d100L.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2018 05:45

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

I don't think he had a reason, I'm pretty sure he was around when the moon went up and swore to stand on it for no real reason, and then peloria was on the warpath after he couldn't kill Godunya.

# ¿ Nov 23, 2018 22:49

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

There isn�t much overlap between westerners and the Lunars, since there�s a bunch of Orlanthi and the impenetrable fog of the Syndics Ban dividing them. The Lunar Empire includes the Carmanians, who are very western but have a dualistic version with a lot of influences from solar cults and other local ones, like Bisos and Humakt, so the Lunars were able to integrate easily after they conquered them. If the Lunars had to try converting malkioni they�d probably argue that the Red Moon was a path to deeper mysteries beyond logic and was exceptional among the gods from her unique position in Time, so worshiping her wouldn�t be spiritually negative. Probably a lot like Nysalor in the first age.

# ¿ Dec 9, 2018 00:23

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

Jeff Richards was talking about Sheng Seleris on Facebook and I def thought this was worth spreading. Incredibly good hooks for a Lunar campaign

Jeff Richards posted:

A little note based on an earlier discussion with a friend. Sheng Seleris is the nightmare of the Lunar subconscious. He is trapped in a Lunar Hell, but every Lunar has nightmares of his escape. These nightmares grew in frequency and terror after the rise of the Boat Planet in 1624. Now that the Redlands are in full revolt, and the King of Wings has defeated the Lunar Army of the south and conquered the satrapy of Oraya, the threat of Sheng's escape grow.

In 1625, the King of Wings invaded First Blessed and the Red Emperor was forced to personally thwart an attempt by Sheng Seleris to slip out of the Underworld. This weakened the Red Emperor and he could not stop the Dragonrise (and instead had to use much of his remaining strength to drive off the awakened True Dragon).

The Red Emperor has ordered that most of the remaining garrisons of the Lunar Provinces be stripped and sent to First Blessed to defend Blessed Torang itself. Jar-eel - the Fourth Inspiration of Moonson - has been tasked with defending the birthplace of the Red Goddess.

And every good Lunar fears that this is all being coordinated by Sheng Seleris, smiling in his infernal realm.

He's very very angry at the moon

# ¿ Dec 21, 2018 07:27

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

Ataxerxes posted:

I hope we will see a Pavis/Dara Happa/West supplement for 13th Age Glorantha, converting things to the 13th Age rules is doable but it would be nice to have more material. Especially more heroquests.

The West is pretty easy to handle with just using regular Wizards, and there are surprisingly few written-up heroquests and myths. I think the expectation is you make up your own, as you would with regular quests.

The Dara Happan stuff is harder to do. The recommendations in the book for converting clerics and paladins over are probably the best you'll get for now. Hopefully they add cool stuff like Shargash berserkers and Dara Happan Noble Commanders but they probably won't.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2019 22:49

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

cheetah7071 posted:

Does anyone have a map of Genertela with just the major regions marked? The Guide is so detailed that getting broad answers like "what is directly east of the lunar empire" is kind of tricky.

Barring a map, a quick rundown of what you'd pass through if you went around the lunar empire instead of through it while trying to go northwest would be great, that's my immediate question.

If you're going Northwest from Sartar or the Holy Country you'll be going through the Grazelands and reaching Aggar and Talastar, a land of Orlanthi in the hills trying to resist lunar expansion. The Talastari have a lot of dara happan cultural influence but they're both bordering the Lunar Empire. They also border Dorastor, nestled in a gap between mountains, although that's on the other side from the Empire so if you want them there you'll have to encourage it somehow.

Above that is Brolia, which is a blasted wasteland inhabited by barbaric orlanthi and telmori werewolves. Then you're hitting into Carmania and can't get around because of the Syndics Ban and mountains, so you'll have to cut through.

Wrestlepig fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Jan 27, 2019

# ¿ Jan 27, 2019 23:56

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

It sounds good although I don�t know if it�ll fit the table.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2019 08:26

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

TwoQuestions posted:

I understand how a weaponthane could stand against a cavalry fighter, I'm talking about the mass of regular fighters, or do Ram weaponthanes make up the difference?

It just seems like a big investment on the Riders' part to feed horses for everyone, when such an all-cav force gets dunked on by infantry, who need a lot less land to feed.

Orlanthi magic was super powerful then. Lots of flying, lightning bolts, and wind that blows away arrows. They also have metalworking and plenty of bronze. Plus these aren�t regular orlanthi, they�re Vingkotlings, who were way more warlike.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2019 10:00

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

I think the invisible orlanth cult is probably different from the malkion/orlanth henotheist stuff in Ralios, since Carmania's gone from the Invisible God to Idovanus and Ganestarus. it's probably something weird and conspiratorial, considering the high-priest is half-brother to the top Magi and son of the Taloned Countess of Spol.

The wiki says it's a cult that talks about how orlanth defeated the invisible god and was enlightened, although that could mean a lot of things.

Wrestlepig fucked around with this message at 01:10 on Apr 21, 2019

# ¿ Apr 21, 2019 01:07

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

DalaranJ posted:

Regarding the breaking of the compromise, mortals might fare better this time because Orlanth and Yelm, (and probably? the Red Goddess) are perfectly available to come to their aid. Although I suppose the crisis might not actually manifest until one of them is killed again.

I got some bad news for you: the lunars killed Orlanth for a bit, which sent Ernalda to sleep. They got better after an extreme amount of heroquesting.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2019 22:14

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

The only thing that�s really changed from king of Sartar is that Argrath is set up as one guy only. Kallyr dies in King of Sartar after anything is set in the RPGs. They also added in Queen Samastina of Esrolia as another prominent female hero.

The reading of Argrath as a smug prick and megalomaniac who will use anything and anyone as a tool to fulfil his crazy plans that ruin everything still exists, as it always did.

# ¿ Sep 7, 2019 13:21

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

A lot of places have their own equivalent to it or big thing that happened and ended the darkness. Praxians care more about storm bull killing the devil and Waha creating a new way of life, the East Isles have myths about a great mystic proving that the devil was an illusion, Pamalt defeating the worm that walks, Shargash killing everything, Gargandoros ordering Varama to descend into the underworld to be the new inslaved sun in Fonrit. A few other cultures have a different take on the quest where Yelm proved his death was unjustified and had his unruly nephew apologise, and the westerners say Zzabur cast a really kickass spell that made the gods fix their mess. All of them are as true as each other.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2020 13:20

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

wiegieman posted:

What's a good 13th age class to represent a white moon heretic?

Pretty much any of them, it�s a diverse movement, but sorcerer seems good.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2020 02:47

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

The red emperor once had a baccanal so wild the survivors were illuminated by doing reverse austerity

# ¿ Apr 15, 2020 09:34

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

reignonyourparade posted:

Idly clicking around on the wiki and discovered the existence of Gwalynkus the Good, 1/4 dryad, 1/4 Mostali, married and had a kid with a sentient wheel.

Pavis, (the guy that is) you're way less impressive than I though uh were.

Heroquests, not even once

# ¿ Jun 15, 2020 13:43

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

The actual idea behind the malkioni is they're these plato-influenced greek/indian/ancient hebrew culture with variations on a caste system, and established military and wizard classes. They're also monotheistic with sorta saints and messiahs, even if the invisible god wasn't emphasised as an abstract omniprescence of platonic ideals. They didn't really get fleshed out and a lot of the art was pretty western/medieval. The closest analogy was the medieval west, so it stuck in people's minds.

Early malkioni art:

recent malkioni art

# ¿ Jun 17, 2020 22:35

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

Gorelab posted:

Here's a question if Zistor was a big enough breach of the compromise to allow Orlanth to come kill it, why wasn't Nysalor as another incarnated god?

Nysalor was a much more elegant entry into reality than the god learner�s �gently caress Around and find out. Plus a lotta mysticism to smooth it over.

# ¿ Jun 19, 2020 22:43

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

Nanomashoes posted:

I also love Animate Loon, which seems to be a one shot duck-only spell that would make the scariest opponent in the game if it didn't have only like 30% to hit with its bite.

One day there�ll be enough stuff for solars, then SurEnslib will probably have it for max heron power to protect against Alkoth.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2020 04:31

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

Mimir posted:

What they'll probably learn over the adventure is that the Templars plan on sending a champion on the heroquest "The Path of Lightfore" - (Arcane Lore p109) to bless the ballista. The PCs might disrupt the ritual beforehand, but they might also oppose it in progress, or get wrapped up in it - the PCs might act as sabatours in their ritual role as testers, which is my understanding of how this works.

One thing i want to add is that a big part of the classic Yelmalio vs Orlanth conflict is Orlanth stealing Yelmalio's spear, that might be a fun mythological path to yoink things down

# ¿ Jan 22, 2021 05:48

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

Mimir posted:

Here�s an idea I�ve been toying with, maybe as a big campaign finale to heroquest into, to really make my glorantha vary: What if Orlanth didn�t kill Yelm? We know that they both think the killing went the way it did because of the essential difficulties of Justice and Rulership - but what if, deep in the godtime, we�ve all been missing the essential setup for The Greatest Murder Mystery of All Time?

The really tricky part is convincing orlanth or the orlanthi that they didn�t kill Yelm, since they think it was justified and saying they didn�t would wound their pride.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2021 23:19

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 05:55

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

I think the ultimate conclusion of a campaign focusing on loskalms occult harmony is that Lord Death-On-A-Horse can�t be defeated by the current society and men of all, so the heroes need to change/transcend. Depending how illuminates you want to be you could conclude that the most Man of All thing to do would be to do what you�re supposed to be doing. Though that�s very argrathy so it�s either a better story for a different context or going to cause Problems.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2021 10:39

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