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reignonyourparade posted:
_successful_ wizards, animists and theists are all objectively right about the cosmos. Theists who worship Gods that don’t exist, or that didn’t to the things they tell stories about are, as a rule, not successful. Same for sorcerers who think there is a power node somewhere, but are wrong about it’s strength or nature. Having a false belief doesn’t mean you can’t do magic; the consequences are more subtle than that. For theism, such a false cult takes more from it’s regular worshippers than it gives back, requiring pyramid-style growth that isn’t sustainable in the long run. For false wizardry, or sorcery, the consequences.are born by the environment, which within a generation becomes a desolate wasteland. In both cases, if something has been successful for millennia, it is very likely OK. Whereas if some genius or prophet can come up with an entirely convincing argument and demonstration as to why some new idea is true, they are wrong 99 times out of a hundred.
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Jun 21, 2020 11:34
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Rand Brittain posted:I'm not a super Glorantha lore nerd, but the idea that if the God Learners recognized two gods as being equivalent, they're literally and objectively the same being, sounds... wrong? The book is called cults of runequest, not Gods of Gloranrha. It’s kind of tautologically true that if two temples mutually recognise each others initiates, they are part of the same cult. And recognising initiates is mostly done via magic, not written records. So the ‘objective’ truth of the rulebook is telling you what results that magic (e.g. Soul sight) returns. If the cult magic is in some sense getting that identity wrong, then the cult will eventually change or collapse. The God Learner version of this didn’t last a year. But it is possible to be less wrong without being sufficiently right.
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Aug 18, 2023 10:03
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Herman Merman posted:How strong are Elmal's fire powers? It'd seem weird if the Storm Tribe has access to more powerful fire magic than the Solar Tribe's frontier areas. Thats’s the thing about Elmal; if he ever stops being Orlanth’s loyal thane, then his followers stop being part of the storm tribe. Instead you would have a situation like the Grazelands, where a minority of mounted flame archers rule a larger group of mostly-disarmed Vendrefi. Or whatever the Pentan Yelmic horse warriors were up to that made the Lunars think it would be a good idea to take up worship of a six-armed horse eating demon. And the thing is, the mythic progression of the Greater Darkness did actually have Elmal take over when Orlanth left on the LightBringers Quest. You don’t marry your bosses wife (I.e. Ernalda) if you expect him to come back.
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Sep 1, 2023 15:45
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Herman Merman posted:What is Yelm from the perspective of a Yelmalio worshipper? Is he Yelmalio's father, or is Yelmalio a human-accessible aspect of a more abstract, distant sun god? Should Yelm also be honored, or do the Yelmalioans think that Yelm worship is somehow misguided (too holy, too abstract, too useless)? What's their relationship to Yelm worshippers, are they somehow subordinate to them in theory? I think Yelm generally comes under ‘too abstract and difficult for ordinary people to worship’. One way around that is to retire to a tower and stare at the Sun all day. The other is to come from the right Imperial bloodlines, and keeping a shaman on staff who lets you tap into the collective knowledge of all those ancestors.
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Sep 2, 2023 13:37
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One strong option for a modern RQ campaign is _six seasons in sartar_, and it’s two sequels. It follows the story beats of a Gloranthan version of the Lord of the Rings. The PCs are the young people of, or regular visitors to, a small backwater farming community. One that has always stayed out of history, to the point where most historical clan lists forget to mention the Haraborn. Then, one day, politics happens to the village.
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Sep 3, 2023 10:59
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Narsham posted:I love the claim this is an unanswerable question when, in actual gameplay, some Elmal PC is going to want to recover Rune magic and the only shrine handy will be a Yemalian shrine. That’s exactly why the current approach is to say definitely that Elmal is Yelmalio. To anyone in setting, is as objectively answerable a question as ‘what is the capital of Sartar’. It never made sense to have that be a metaphysical unknowable. Ambiguity comes up only when talking about gods that are not widely worshipped, so there are no temples or shrines you can visit to test things out. Alternatively, you can doubt the basic premise of theism. You can ask Yelmalio about Elmali cult secrets and he will know the answer; theists will say that is because he remembers being Elmal and doing what Elmal did. But maybe that information comes from some other source, like heroquesters telling him so? Thing is, that means literally talking to the gods gets you no useful information. That kind of radical skepticism is equivalent to a modern person saying ‘what if science really doesn’t work?’’
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Sep 15, 2023 17:32
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The Elmal subcult of Yelmalio, when it’s published, will very likely be associated with Yu-Kargzant or someone, and so have Firespear (which is in the Red Book of Magic, but not taught by any published cult write up). it’s a limitation of a paper book that it has to say ‘Elmal is a subcult of Yelmalio’, rather than ‘both are subcults of the true unknowable divine entity’.
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Sep 16, 2023 12:15
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It’s explicitly not ‘all similar gods are the same’. Some similar cults are different gods, some different cults are similar gods. For example, all the Grain Godesses share a single cult write up, but they are noted as having distinct Rune Pools; you worship one, not the other. Lhankhor Mhy is Buserian, but Irripi Ontor is not. I feel some people are really missing an is/could/should distinction here. The God Learners were king of doing things that could be done, and were only really wrong about that when they were in the process of testing that boundary. They were a lot shakier of the corresponding ‘should’ question. Worshipping the purely farmer god Barntar, rather than the warrior/farmer/chieftain Orlanth, apparently objectively works. The ‘Worship Orlanth’ skill allows regaining Barntar rune magic. The rules serve to tell a player things their character could hardly be ignorant of. This is relevant to, but doesn’t determine, the politics of Dragon Pass. Because could is not should.
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Sep 18, 2023 14:20
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If your PC comes from the Sun Dome branch of the cult, then he was probably born on temple lands, initiated direct to Yelmalio, and trained to fight on foot as part of a military unit in defence of his farmlands. If he.come from the Elmali branch, he was probably brought up in a regular Orlanthi clan, and initiated as an adult into the clan. There he met Elmal at Orlath’s stead, and, perhaps due to a family tradition, connected with him. He would likely be, or have aspirations to be, part of the clan warrior aristocracy, and fight as a thane from horseback. The clan elders advised him the best way to follow his calling was to sign up with the Sun Domers for a term of mercenary service. This may well have been as a scout, messenger or auxiliary, instead of a hoplite. Now that term is over, and they are looking to make a reputation for themselves. The latter is probably a lot more playable by default in a typical campaign. The first really needs a specific hook to explain why they are here, and what they hope they gain.
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Sep 20, 2023 12:59
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Magnusth posted:Note also that this part - Yelmalio worshippers being extremely misogynistic conservative puritan assholes - is part of what makes people really frustrated when grogs go "oh actually, in modern times your favorite guys are all Yelmalions" Yelmalians in Dragon Pass are Heortlings, and so follow the same Six Paths gender system as any of Ernalda’s other husbands. If you want to make them patriarchal assholes, then that a case of your Glorantha varying. I suppose it is plausible enough that some particular High Priest could decide that what everyone was doing was Wrong and must be Stopped. The main difference from Orlanthi is they are more egalitarian, relying on a massed militia rather than a heroic warrior aristocracy.
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Sep 20, 2023 15:07
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If I recall correctly something from the Six Ages development blog correctly, somewhere between King of Dragon Pass and Six ages all the source code succumbed to bit rot of the obscure tools used to create that game. So Six Ages was a clean rewrite. This would mean that the source code for Ekarna, the Hyaloring god of trade, is not the same as the source code for Issaries, the Heortling one Or maybe I am getting that wrong, and they did find a way to copy and paste that bit. Close textual analysis might even be able to find out. Either way, if you play the game, they give you the Silvertongue blessing.
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Sep 21, 2023 13:22
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I suspect Runes are far more to do with the worshipper than the worshipped. Go along the the Earth temple with a high Fertility rune, you meet bounteous Ernalda. 40 years later, with death in your bones, it is Ty Kora Tek who greets you. If you showed up at a Wind temple with an active chaos rune, you would almost certainly end up dead. And not because the god struck you down, but because the priest (or temple wyter) knows the story of what happened the last time someone tried that. Rune cults exist largely to place temple defences around.worship sites, to control who gets to meet the gods, so imposing a human moral order on them. Sun Dome temples have especially powerful temple defences, created ages ago. The Yelmalio cult that controls them, following the Monrogh doctrine, chooses to let those initiated at clan shrines to Elmal in through the doors. Of the two remaining tribal temple controlled by the Elmal cult, one admits Yelamians and one does not.
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Sep 22, 2023 09:57
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Tias posted:What temples are those? One is in Runegate (as per current canon), the other somewhere down south with the Dundealos or Pol Joni. Though the latter will be as much Praxian nomad Yelmalio (iirc sometimes called Yamsur) as Hyaloring Yelmalio (typically called Elmal).. Sources: a 2021 essay from Jeff [the Sun Dome Temple in Sartar], and the JC publication Valley of Plenty.
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Sep 22, 2023 12:11
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The pragmatic problem with a radically different system that has detailed enumerated powers for each cult is you need to actually write all those cults. Which is the issue Chaosium have. An 11 volume cults books is not enough to include every fan favourite. Let alone handle say the healing goddess of the East Isles in any other way than ‘it’s probably a bit like Chalana Arroy maybe?’. You can, like questworlds, have the players basically make up their cults and powers, which works for some people. But other find it requires them to do too much homework. A more feasible single-person project would be to stick with a BRP D100 system but with Questwords-style opposed rolls counting degrees of success, with damage coming at the end of combat. Or just do what most people who tolerate the system do, and houserule away (or just be unaware of) the rules that make combat excessively lethal. RAW 3x location hp is Instant death, with no healing, representing beheading or being cut in half. It’s just that takes as little as 9 damage, when a typical hit from a human warrior does 1d10. +1 + 1d4. And then there are of only specials that double that, but criticise that are worse still.
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Sep 23, 2023 11:10
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Magnusth posted:
Then you are in luck, because I’ve not see any attempt to establish that. What there is is a book series called Cults of Runequest, which will reportedly state as a game rule that Elmal is a _subcult_ of Yelmalio. Subcult is a rule term that mean you can potentially worship at, and learn magic from, multiple sub cults of the same cult without hitting game mechanical consequences like sprits of reprisal or split rune pools. As is the purpose of game rules, this answers practical in-play questions like ‘if my Elmali worshipper signs up for a term of service with the Sun Dome Templars, does he get kicked out of the clan?’ To attempt an analogy, say season 1 of a TV sitcom features a love triangle between Pat, Lesley and Sam. In Season 2 Pat and Sam get married. Does that settle the question of whether Lesley is Pat’s true love? No, all it means is they got married. Maybe they will divorce later. Maybe they will be ok, but notI as perfectly happy as they could have been. The point is, it would be really impractical to film a whole season of a sitcom while maintains ambiguity between who is living and sleeping with who. And if you did, there would be a real disconnect between the characters, who would know that, and the viewers who didn’t. I do kind of dislike the term ‘sub cult’, because it implies a hierarchical relationship where one rarely actually exists. But tht goes back to RQ2, so you can probably blame Steve Perrin.
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Sep 24, 2023 12:32
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I was hoping the cults books would clear up the rules in this area, perhaps introducing some new term like cognate cult. Because that text clearly doesn’t describe the relation of other ‘sub cults’ like Shargash and Tolat. So there is no reason to assume it applies here. As a deity, Elmal is clearly not a lesser or subservient figure to Yelmalio; neither has any myths of one being the others cup bearer. Instead, what Yelmalans and most Elmali believe is that Yelmalio is Elmal ‘grown up’. Once Orlanth left the world, the junior patrol thane got promoted to being in charge of the defences. This makes them cognate cults; magically this demonstrably works. As a cult, Elmal is clearly smaller than Yelmalio, having perhaps two minor temples in its own right. Both of which are integrated into the Orlanthi tribal system, and so can’t really be called politically or economically independent of the Orlanth cult. I don’t see any useful way of adding ambiguity to any of that that wouldn’t resolve to PCs in setting not knowing what spells they could cast.
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Sep 24, 2023 23:17
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250 around Runegate, 200 in the south, 10 other clans that have a shrine and you can easily get to 1000. Or maybe the numbers dropped slightly over the decade to 1625, now the Sun Domers are officially an ally rather than enemy. As you see in King of Dragon Pass, most Elmali are individuals within majority-Orlanthi clans. There are only one or two majority-Elmali clans. You play such a clan in Six Ages, but there they are one clan amongst many. A piece of advice that deserves to be explicitly written down is that if you are running a clan-based campaign, you first find out what cults your players are interested in. Those are the shrines that clan maintains. If you can’t subtly discourage a player from generating say a Wachaza cultist, then it’s time to find out why that clan has an Wachaza shrine.
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Sep 25, 2023 16:06
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Narsham posted:. Allowing a Humakti to recover magic in a temple to Yanafal Tarnils could be a minor RP point in one campaign, a huge clue in a second campaign, and the trigger for a complete disaster in a third. Trying to manage these choices on the design end of things is the opposite of what Glorantha should be about. Glorantha isn't about information, it's about stories. To my mind, artificial ambiguity does the opposite; it rules out all those potentially interesting stories. Maybe the PC’s experience e supposed to be unusual, demonstrating something unique about them. Maybe it is something unusual to the shrine, which is in fact not what it.claims to be. And maybe the rules on what works changed last Death day, and the PC is just one of the first to find out. All of which require a status quo from which to deviate in order for the story to make sense. You can’t have a murder mystery if everyone perpetually exists is some kind of unobserved quantum mixture of dead and alive. I have to admit, I don’t get the perspective of someone who thinks otherwise. Even creating a PC character means creating someone who is not, under normal circumstances, going to exist in canonical Glorantha. Does that mean that you need to not have population figures given in order to feel you have permission to do that?
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Sep 25, 2023 22:07
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Tias posted:I mean, the people who suddenly lost their staple crops and local goddesses (who, we must remember, straight up made the crops grow) because the God Learners hosed around might not be willing to accept it either. Note that in the Earth Cults book, the Grain Godesses _are_ distinct cults in RQ rules terms, each having their own Rune Pool. Which kind of begs the question of how the God Learners were able to pull off the Goddess Switch, why they thought it would work, and why the it wasn’t immediately obvious that it hadn’t.
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Oct 10, 2023 10:50
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In short, in Glorantha, mythology contains a lot more cosmic truth than real-world mythology typically does. The God Learners were, with notable exceptions, right about that side of things. What they were less good with was the personal or social meaning of those stories. Orlanth being married to Ernalda is some form of cosmic truth. That you, as an Orlanthi clansman, love and respect your wife, listen to her advice, and make your own decision is a personal truth. And one that has to be lived, not merely stated. The myths connect the two, magic is just the incentive for taking the lesson seriously.. Presumably when the God Learners did the switch, it was something like a Heroquest to the God Time to swap two of Ernalda’s daughters in the cradle. This worked, in the sense that people initiated after the change could learn and cast most of the same magic as those before it. The problem is, the different personalities of the two sisters were not a good match for the social role of their worshippers within society. Maybe they were energetic and diligent when the crops (and husbands) they were now responsible for needed them to be lazy and clever. So a generation of worshippers learnt the wrong personal and moral lessons from their cults, and in the long run society suffered for it.
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Oct 11, 2023 21:50
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