From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V2 #191 Reply-To: rq-rules Errors-To: owner-rq-rules-digest Precedence: bulk Content-Return: Prohibited Return-Path: owner-rq-rules-digest RQ Rules Digest: Saturday, 24 February 1996 Volume 02 : Number 191 TABLE OF CONTENTS Mmohrfield@aol.com [none] Kevin Rose Ernalda rune lords ANDOVER@delphi.com Ernalda rune lords Kevin Rose Slave Collars Sandy Petersen Sorcery and Riding 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: Mmohrfield@aol.com Date: Sat, 24 Feb 1996 10:32:10 -0500 Subject: [none] I don't have all my texts with me at this moment. Although the RQII _Pavis_ "City Guide for the gamemaster" shows (on page 15) that the Cult of Ernalda includes 5 Rune Priests and 3 Rune Lords and 2 Rune Lord/Priests, ^^^^ ^^^^ I am not finding any parameter for such Lord qualifications, only just Acolytes and Priestesses of Ernalda." This is because the RQII rules assumed that most cults had both Rune Lords and Rune Priests. The RQIII rules changed this,only a few cults have both ranks. The Rune Lords and Rune Lord/Priests mentioned are probably Rune Priests or acolytes in the new rules. Mark Mohrfield ------------------------------ From: Kevin Rose Date: Sat, 24 Feb 1996 13:34:42 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: Ernalda rune lords Brad Furst asked > > I am not finding any parameter for such Lord qualifications, only just > Acolytes and Priestesses of Ernalda. I already understand that "priest" in > this context means "priestess." Are the listed Rune Lord types here > referring to the secret/outlawed Orlanthi Wind Lords? Pavis is an RQ2 product, where all cults were forced into the same mold. It lists RL's because ALL RQ2 cults had rune lords and priests, whether it made sense or not. Ernalda/Dendara/Eritha is protected by the primary male cult so it makes no sense for them to RLs, any more then it makes sense for Humakt, Storm Bull or Yelorna to have RPs. What you do with them is up to you, but Ernalda and Eritha are probably the two most common female cults in Pavis, so they should have a fair number of Alcoytes. I would probably convert the RLs & RL\Ps into Alcolytes. There should be somewhere around 1500-2000 or so female initiates in the 5000 or so humans in Pavis/New Pavis, which should be ably to support at least 30-40 priestess's/acoyltes of the primarily female cults. How to break them down is a good question. Do what you thinks is best. . . Kevin. ------------------------------ From: ANDOVER@delphi.com Date: Sat, 24 Feb 1996 14:40:15 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Ernalda rune lords Or, alternatively, make them RLs of an earth fighting cult, like Babeester Gor. ------------------------------ From: Kevin Rose Date: Sat, 24 Feb 1996 14:35:09 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: Slave Collars My understanding was that magical slave collars were incredibly rare, costing a lot when you bought them from the dwarves. Sandy once made a comment about them only being built in one place in Genertela (although I think he had couple of weasel words in his statement). In general, you don't need them. Historically you can enslave people very efficently without magic. The use of violence and terror to keep them from trying anything has been very suceesful.. When someone has the ability and right to hurt or kill you at will you will tend to be cooperative. Group punishments can reduce the number of people trying to escape or do something to the owners. The other trick is to make the life the slaves have preferable to dying. An obvious trick is to encourage families, as this results in leverage over every member of the family, as well as keeping the slaves happier. Are you likely to do something that will result in your wife or child being beaten to death? Are you likely to allow another slave to do something that will result in you and the rest of your family dying in agony? The only time you would need something like the slave collar is when you had captured someone both magically powerful and miltant and needed to keep them prisoner. For example, you hardly need to use a slave collar on a Chalana Arroy or Ernalda priestess. The most she can do is escape, and if you have a couple of friends/family members of hers you can probably prevent even this. Simply point out all the horrible things you will have to do to them if she runs. This trick doesn't tend to work on somone with offensive magic, but do you really want to keep a Zorak Zoran death lord around at all? You can't really enslave someone who's only plan is to kill as many of you as possible before he dies. Kevin ------------------------------ From: Sandy Petersen Date: Sat, 24 Feb 96 14:41:55 -0600 Subject: Re: Sorcery and Riding Tal Meta >Permanence: while I like the idea of a sorcerer being able to maintain >spells via his presence, does permanence -really- have to cost a point of >POW? No one has to use POW to maintain spells permanently, if they're willing to donate a couple MPs a week and use up part of their Presence. >Trying to "update" a character like Maguere(?) from Griffin Island would be >next to impossible; he was casting several dozen spells a week on his boss's >troops weapons. It was characters like this (think what an incredibly dull life he must lead -- why would a trained sorcerer do this for? No PC would stand it for a minute!) that my sorcery rules were intended to eliminate. Instead, Maguere would now simply use his Presence to maintain a certain number of Multispelled Boost Damages (or whatever) on the troops. He'd never cast a spell at all, just keep 'em running. >Would a RQ3 Duration skill still be posible for sorcerers casting spells on >other objects/creatures? The whole point of Presence was to stop worrying about Duration. If you _like_ Duration by all means keep it, but I felt it was a major bookkeepping nightmare. >The other thing that, well, qualms me a bit is the heavy Glorantha slant >on sorcery. I fisrt encountered RQ in version 3, and while I've >"borrowed" alot of ideas from Glorantha, I don't GM there. RQ3 sorcery >had a generic flavor I _liked_; tying it to a Gloranthan pseudo-religion >makes me a tad uncomfortable, I guess. Okay. 1) Dump the Saints 2) Dump the Sects You're left with a generic system that works fine. RIDING: The new Cambridge Military History has a section in which Bacharach claims that mounted combat in medieval and ancient times was actually quite rare, and quotes a number of battles in which the knights charged the foe, only to stop their horses, get off, and then engage in foot combat with the enemy. In essence, says Bacharach, most knights were really dragoons. NOTE: I don't buy his argument, based as it is on a few specific cases rather than a general proof. BUT, it is rather interesting that knights were evidently quite willing to fight on foot -- the examples he gives are almost all cases in which the opposing troops were fairly good infantry. Presumably when facing other knights or unsteady infantry, they'd stay on horseback. Sandy P. ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V2 #191 ******************************* 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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