From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V2 #34 Reply-To: rq-rules Errors-To: owner-rq-rules-digest Precedence: bulk Content-Return: Prohibited Return-Path: owner-rq-rules-digest RQ Rules Digest: Friday, 11 August 1995 Volume 02 : Number 034 TABLE OF CONTENTS Phil Johnson 200% skills... Phil Johnson Ages Robert McArthur RQ Boardgames mailing list: call for inter Phil Johnson Heroquesting - Cultural and not Personal David Cake HQ/aspected POW, again. mr happy HQ:Oh Lord help me to be more like you. MSmylie@aol.com HQ, etc. Neil Robinson Rituals and Heroquests Graydon penitential monster RULES OF THE ROAD 1. Do not include large sections of a message in your reply. Especially not to add "Yeah, I agree" or "No, I disagree." Or be excoriated. If someone writes something good and you want to say "good show" please do. But don't include the whole message you praise. 2. Use an appropriate Subject line. 3. Learn the art of paraphrasing: Don't just quote and comment on a point-by-point basis. When paraphrasing you demonstrate exactly how well you understand the point someone was trying to make. 4. There is no number 4. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Phil Johnson" Date: Fri, 11 Aug 1995 13:22:14 GMT+800 Subject: Re: 200% skills... > From: tickler@netcom.com (Brian Tickler) > Subject: 200% skills... > To: rq-rules@hops.wharton.upenn.edu > Date: Thu, 10 Aug 1995 10:55:15 -0700 (PDT) > Reply-to: RQ-Rules@hops.wharton.upenn.edu > Robert: > 3) A campaign where a PC fumbled, fell down, banged his head on the wall, > and 50,000 gold pieces fell out of it. > A guaranteed 2nd level item that any player would find in the games that i would play in ( i've never GMed AD&D actually ) was to find a portable hole..!!! ------------------------------ From: "Phil Johnson" Date: Fri, 11 Aug 1995 13:28:36 GMT+800 Subject: Re: Ages > Anyone worked out ages for the standard PC races besides human? I can't > believe suggestions aren't given in the rules. We aren't supposed to assume > that all races have the same lifespan, are we?!?!? > >> CRoM << > crom@erinet.crom > Weren't ages given in Eldar Secrets and / or Gloranthan Beastery ------------------------------ From: Robert McArthur Date: Fri, 11 Aug 1995 15:17:01 +1000 (EST) Subject: RQ Boardgames mailing list: call for interest Joerg, myself and a number of other people seem to be interested in talking extensively about the RQ boardgames. This would include Dragon Pass, Nomad Gods, White Bear Red Moon, and Masters of Luck and Death. If we have enough people interested in this Loren has offered to set up a mailing list. Otherwise, those interested will have their discussions in other ways. If you would be interested in being on such a mailing list send mail to me (either reply to the message or send to "mcarthur@fit.qut.edu.au") indicating your interest. If there are enough, I'll pass the list of people onto Loren to set up the list. The idea for a list separate to the RQ and RQRules is that while the RQ list has carried RQ boardgame information before, it is definitely not to the interest of everyone. As I imagine that the list would have a reasonable amount of traffic, and both RQ and RQRules already have a decent amount of traffic (as far as I'm concerned trying to keep up with it all :-) a new list would seem to be the answer. Announcements and an update could regularly be forwarded to the other lists if people desired. Thanks for your Time! Robert McArthur ------------------------------ From: "Phil Johnson" Date: Fri, 11 Aug 1995 13:45:43 GMT+800 Subject: Re: Heroquesting - Cultural and not Personal > Now, if the village was being attack by broo and Borq performed the > quest to get the Sword of Chaos-Purging Fire then he would gain > personally as well as saving the village. > > Yes, personal heroquests provide personal powers, but they are far more > deadly, and only certain cults would support such soloists. > YES, YES, YES, this is how a minor HQ works for me. Heroquests is the past brought to the present to aid you in the future. The Sword of Chaos-Purging Fire is what the sword has been called and passed down through the ages. In reality the sword was probebly weilded by an exceptional fighter with Flame Blade cast on it but legend has enhanced the weapon and givin it legendary status. So the Heroquest to get the sword to aid the plight of the villages is also filled with legend which the characters recreate thus the sword that they return with is truly enhanced through the divine magics that are Hero Questing and through whatever sacrifices that they gave to the Questing process... Phil. ------------------------------ From: davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake) Date: Fri, 11 Aug 1995 17:48:28 +0800 Subject: Re: HQ/aspected POW, again. >Hello, again. > >Neil Robinson, decloaking: Hi there Neil. You should decloak more often, you speak much sense. >While I somewhat agree, I think there is a distinction between ritual >obligations and heroquests. I think that the major difference between a heroquest and a ritual obligation is that you are more severely tested. If you try and perform a ritual and instead of one of your buddies dressed as your enemy, you get a genuine enemy, then you are one something very like a heroquest. If a Zorak Zorani tries to reenact slaying Krjalk, and they do it by getting a captured, weakened, ogre, and beat up on it the middle of a temple ceremony, its a ritual. If they go looking for the biggest meanest Krjalk they can find, and beat up on them, its a minor heroquest. If they perform all the ceremonies they can in order to summon a powerful supernatural avatar of Krjalk, then its a heroquest. This sort of semantics is not a big issue to me in any case. > I'm sort of thinking that a >Humakti with Death-aspected POW (to use your example) would still have to >either a) know the Sever Spirit spell or b) have some ability gained on >heroquest to use that POW to power a Sever Spirit spell; the spell itself >would presumably function in the same way, with the Humakti trying to >overcome the target's (spirit) POW with his own. Something I agree with. Aspected POW does not, in itself, grant you abilities. You need to know how to use them. Sometimes the use will be obvious (hey, its a maul, maybe I should whack things with it), but other times it will be extremely hidden. And sometimes the motivation might be as important as the knowledge - I really like the idea of personality traits being necessary to activate some hero powers. > If you're suggesting that >his Death-aspected POW could in effect be added to his regular (spirit) POW >in order to overcome, then I guess I may be in agreement (with the defender >having to either add his own Death-aspected POW or some other POW -- either >Mastery Rune POW, or other aspected POW with the Mastery or perhaps Magic >Runes as a modifier or cap). If, on the other hand, you're suggesting that >it's strictly a Death POW vs. Death POW kind of thing, I'm not sure I follow >the reasoning. Personally, I wasn't thinking of aspected POW as operating in >such a seperate fashion. > I think both are possibilities. Sometimes a hero gains such powers as part of themself, sometimes they just get a chunk to wield for a while. >I have to admit I'm leaning more and more towards the idea that learning a >divine spell and acquiring aspected POW are seperate; i.e., that the POW you >would normally sacrifice to learn a divine spell is instead "transformed" >into aspected POW, while you learn the spells to cast it in some other >manner. I definately am leaning this way. BUT I am also not so keen on the idea that having divine magic automatically gives you a big pile of Aspected POW to play around with and use as you will. My conception is something like learning spells involves both learning the ritual and POW sacrifice - the POW sacrificed is given to your deity, and they transform it into appropriate aspected POW and allow you to use it, bia the mystic connection that they have to you. But having a use of Sever Spirit does not mean that you have Death POW - it means you have access to use of some Death POW, in a limited way. Cheers Dave >Later, > >Mark > > ------------------------------ From: mr happy Date: Fri, 11 Aug 1995 14:29:47 +0100 (BST) Subject: HQ:Oh Lord help me to be more like you. Cult heroquests, where the quester follows in the path of a previous god/saint/hero, are tests. A god who is unable to influence the mundane world must do so through their worshippers. When a worshipper follows a heroquest path they must -behave- like their exemplar in order to benefit. Cult heroquests encourage cultists to behave like their god acting as a form of natural selection in favour of those follwers who do the will of their deity in the Middle World. By way of an example here's a thumbnail sketch of a Hunter initiation quest. Each station of the quest tests one of the Hunter virtues (cf Pendragon Pass, TotRM #6.) These tests can be resolved with dice or role-playing according to taste. 1) Daga tries to slow the quester to a stand-still with magic. (Energetic.) 2) Lokaymadon attempts to browbeat the quester into performing a humiliating task. (Proud.) 3) The quester is now ravenous, thanks to Daga's magic. The quester catches the deer-spirit Damal and tries to butcher it. As the quester is not yet an initiate he cannot perform the Peaceful Cut. Damal begs them to steal this magic from Rathor and use it to seperate his body and soul. (Merciful.) 4) The quester attempts to steal the Peaceful Cut from The terrifying Bear god. (Valorous.) 5) After the quester has performed the Peaceful Cut The Lady of the Wild asks him to return it to her. If he acquiesces she gives it back to him with her blessing. (Generous.) A quester who proves his virtue in three of the five stations is successful. He is transformed (he is now a hunter) and possesses a "powerful" magic item (his bear-claw Peaceful Cut focus.) - ------- Andrew Behan ------------------------------ From: MSmylie@aol.com Date: Fri, 11 Aug 1995 14:29:43 -0400 Subject: HQ, etc. Hello, all. me, previously: >Heroes, as "modern-day" Gloranthans (or generics, whatever) >understand them, did not exist before the Compromise to which David Dunham (correctly) replies: >That would imply that Vingkot and Heort aren't heroes, and I think >you'd get a lot of argument from the Barbarian Belt. After all, there >are myths about each of them... Sorry, an error on my part; I was trying to suggest that _heroquesters_ , as such, didn' t exist before the Compromise. A God Age hero, IMO, would have gone about becoming a hero in a very different way than someone operating within the Compromise's restraints (once again, I suppose, trying to distinguish between mythic actors and mythic reenactors). Hm; I was about to try and argue that King Heort was a First Age Hero, but on second thought I guess I'm confusing his God Age existence with Arkat's summoning him during the Gbaji war... Dave Pearton: >Heros are those who go out and gain benifits for their >tribe/clan/village. If the local fertility spirit is being beset by cold >demons from valind's glacier then you go and fight it for the good of >the tribe. There are heros whose primary objectives are personal >power, we can mention a certain white bear..., but I think that the >majority aren't. Most of the HQ's I've read about, Harmast, Arkat, >Argrath, Jar-Eel, Sartar, Elame'-Ata(sp?) are HQing for the good >of their community or the world. The personal power that they gain >is a "side-effect" of that. > >I think that mechanistic rules tend to obscure this point and should >at best be used as guidelines. I think that any heroquest rules >must take into account the support of the comunity, cf the white >feather that represented the support of the tribe in the LBQ. Actually, for the most part, I'm in complete agreement with you; however, I'm not sure that a heroquest done for personal power necessarily "looks" or "feels" any different from a heroquest done with "purer" motives at heart, nor am I certain that the results are wholly different. A lot of heroquests, it seems, wind up enhancing the abilities of the heroquester; a "properly motivated" heroquester (e.g., Argrath, Jar-Eel) uses his or her new powers to aid or defend their community, while a "selfish" one uses them purely for their own gain (e.g., our old friend Harrek). Frex, here's a heroquest list from the Jonstown Compendium in the old _Runequest Companion_, described as the heroquests of Harmast Barefoot, a "peasant who rose to duty" (I apologize for the obscurity of the reference, but it's the only complete list of a single hero's quests I can recall): 1. To gain awakening. 2. To gain the blessing of King Heort and Orlanth Adventurous. 3. To scout the path to the Hidden Gate. 4. To arm himself, wherein he gained his sword, shield, and boots. 5. To ambush Jajamokki. 6. Upon the Lightbringer's path to the land of the Dead he discovered Arkat and freed him. 7. To regain his plow and sow from Jajamokki. 8. Upon the Lightbringer's path again he was wounded but returned with the keys to Kartolin to aid Talor. 9. The Sky Giant's Castle. 10. The return from the Court of Silence. It seems to me that this is a pretty good example of the breadth of possible heroquests; some seem purely personal (arming yourself), some are god-related (the blessings), some are aimed at directly aiding others (Arkat -- unintentionally?, Talor -- intentionally), some are just really obscure (Sky Giant's Castle? Sounds like a reference to an old Judges Guild scenario :-)). But what seems to qualify Harmast as a "proper" hero is that he does these out of duty, not out of self-interest (though arguably, they can be one and the same). I agree with your point that mechanisms for all this would obscure the contextual point to heroquests, but that's true with any rpg mechanism. Rpging shouldn't be about bashing monsters and acquiring treasure, but enforcing this in the rules has always seemed difficult; it's up to the GM and players to make sure that heroquesting doesn't disintegrate into a cynical grab-fest. I don't really think there can be such a thing as a set of "perfect" heroquest rules, but, as you seem to say, there should be _guidelines_ of some sort. It was precisely the lack of guidelines that bothered me, and made me start thinking about a runic/aspected POW system, though I may give up on it soon. I did like your idea on emphasizing or including community support; I'll think about that some more. Later, Mark ------------------------------ From: nrobinso@Direct.CA (Neil Robinson) Date: Fri, 11 Aug 1995 11:37:26 -0700 Subject: Rituals and Heroquests Neil Robinson again... Mark was discussing the difference between heroquests and rituals. Personally, I feel that the rituals done at cult holy days are merely formalized heroquests. At one time they too were 'cutting edge' stuff, but not any more. In fact, in places like Dara Happan, these formal rituals are probably the only method of heroquesting used. Orlanthi tend to have less static heroquests for obvious reasons. The advantage of a standardized quest is that it should have a higher chance of success - you know what to expect and how to deal with it. As Dave Pearson said, culture-specific heroquests should be the norm, not the exception. And the support of your people is vital - we use it to provide a Wyter-like 'spirit' that supports and accompanys you. Now, many of these 'for the clan' heroquests do result in individual gains, especially Orlanthi. You are doing this to gain the ability to kill Dragons or something. As the clan's martial champion or thane, it is your responsibility to protect them so you need to have the ability. Jason and the Argonauts quest for the Golden Fleece is a perfect example of a heroquest that had the support of a country but focused on an individual and several items.... Oh, we tend to 'wing' most of our heroquests, but our games have a large amount of storytelling and we gloss over rules. This wouldn't work with many other groups I have played in. Neil ------------------------------ From: Graydon Date: Fri, 11 Aug 1995 22:28:50 -0400 (EDT) Subject: penitential monster These critters aren't particularly special, but they do make a bracing start to the adventurer's day. Coldrakes Coldrakes are short necked, long tailed draconic hexapeds with a huge appetite (about 350 tons of prey animals a year) and a remarkable turn of speed. They hunt by springing from ambush and running down prey. They live in cold waste regions - tundra, northern mountain foothills, and suchlike, and are typically coloured in mottled patterns of greys and blacks like dirty ice and rock. Coldrakes love to swim, and will hunt seal and walrus in the water. (Not to mention people in small boats.) An average coldrake is 2 m tall at the shoulder and about 12 m long - 1.5 m of head, .5 m of neck, 4 m of legs, body, legs, body, and legs, and 6 m of tapering tail. The head and tail are held stretched out flat when running, with the tail well off the ground. About the only good thing about them is that they're very dumb, and don't generally recognize spellcasting as a threatening activity. They do exhibit learning behaviour, however, and old ones can get quite canny. They can generally outrun horses, too. Characteristics Average STR 20D6 70 Move 12 CON 10D6 35 Hit Points 53 SIZ 20D6 70 Fatigue 105 INT 3 3 POW 5D6 17-18 DEX 4D6 14 Location Melee/Missile AP/HP head 19-20 .33 10/18 LF leg 17-18 .33 6/18 RF leg 15-16 .33 6/18 Fore Q 13-14 .4 10/22 LM leg 11-12 .33 6/18 RM leg 09-10 .33 6/18 Hind Q 07-08 .4 10/22 LR leg 05-06 .33 6/18 RR leg 03-04 .33 6/18 tail 01-02 .25 6/14 Weapon SR Attack% Damage breath 10 special freezing fog bite 6 40 +10 2D6 + 8D6 trample 6 60 +10 6D6 + 4D6 tail sweep 3 50 +10 1D6 + 4D6 Notes: A coldrake has two attacks per melee round; if it bites and tramples, the trample takes place in SR 9. By expending MP, a coldrake can create a thick opaque cloud of freezing fog. This fog has a diamater of 1 m and a POT of 1D6 for every MP used to create it. Anyone caught in the cloud must resist this POT with their CON; failure means 1D8 general HP damage (sucess, 1D4). The cloud lasts for 1 MR/MP; it remains potent, and will do damage each MR until disapating into harmless fog. The cloud will suck the heat out of everything within it and creates great quantities of fog in contact with water. Coldrakes typically try to knock down small creatures before either biting or trampling; those that have encountered sentients before will breath immediately when encountering them again. Critical bite results indicate being swallowed whole for creatures smaller than SIZ 20. Skills: Swim 100 Listen 50 +10 Track 30 +10 Scan 40 +10 Hide 35 Armor: thick tough spongy skin worth SIZ/10 on the limbs, head, and tail, and SIZ/10 +4 on body Magic: the freezing fog breath weapon is highly magical. saundrsg@qlink.queensu.ca | Monete me si non anglice loquobar. ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V2 #34 ****************************** This is the bottom of the RuneQuest Rules Digest. RuneQuest is a trademark of Avalon Hill, and Glorantha is a trademark of Chaosium. With the exception of previously copyrighted material, unless specified otherwise all text in this digest is copyright by the author or authors, with rights granted to copy for personal use, to excerpt in reviews and replies, and to archive unchanged for electronic retrieval. Send electronic mail to Majordomo@hops.wharton.upenn.edu with "help" in the body of the message for subscription information on this and other mailing lists. 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