Glorantha Hero

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: Glorantha Hero

 

I'd never played Runequest or read through any of the Glorantha material. Then about a year ago I saw a veiled reference in some online discussion or website to Broo reproduction' date=' and had to dig around the internet for hours before I was able to piece together what the hell everyone was so disgusted about and wouldn't just come out and say.[/quote']

 

It's even worse than that -- Broo anatomy is such that the victim of their "attentions" never survivies childbirth.

 

There's really nothing at all funny about Broo. They are almost personifications of the Deadly Sins.

[Kristopher]

Re: Glorantha Hero

 

It's even worse than that -- Broo anatomy is such that the victim of their "attentions" never survivies childbirth.

 

There's really nothing at all funny about Broo. They are almost personifications of the Deadly Sins.

 

They're vile.

 

I eventually figured out the part about the implantation of larva, kinda like certain species of wasp, but geez did I have to dig around and read between a lot of lines. Given all the other stuff that's online and can be stumbled into very accidentally, it's strange that all of a sudden no one was willing to give a straightforward and clear account of this one thing, almost as if it were too vile to even speak about.

[Inu]

Re: Glorantha Hero

 

They're vile.

 

I eventually figured out the part about the implantation of larva, kinda like certain species of wasp, but geez did I have to dig around and read between a lot of lines. Given all the other stuff that's online and can be stumbled into very accidentally, it's strange that all of a sudden no one was willing to give a straightforward and clear account of this one thing, almost as if it were too vile to even speak about.

Yup. And I'll note that their position in the game is one of vileness, not anything else. They are not treated lightly.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: Glorantha Hero

 

Yup. And I'll note that their position in the game is one of vileness' date=' not anything else. They are not treated lightly.[/quote']

 

Can't help but wonder why they haven't wiped all the non-Broo off the face of Glorantha. I guess with various deities taking active and competing roples in the affairs of the world evolution will not run its course unimpeded.

 

Broo are one of severeal species who are directly linked to Chaos as a primal force of the world, one hostile to life in general. Preventing Chaotic beings and gods from assuming dominance of Glorantha was a m,ajor theme in early Runequest (that and, for many campaigns, finding fame and treasure in places like the ruins of the once-great city of Pavis).

 

Mongoose's version of Glorantha is set in the Second Age, the period which led up to the more familiar Glorantha. It involves the rivalry between the God Learners (sorcerors who are trying to tap into and mainpulate the Gods themselves) and their Rune-based rivals (who prefer the gods as they are) building up towards an inevitable, catastrophic climax in which the PCs in a particular campaign may or may not be involved. It is this catastrophe, which will destroy many of the empires and even technologies of Glorantha, that will set the stage for the more familiar Third Age.

 

So in effect, the MRQ player using their Glorantha setting starts with a sort of clean slate, as all the established continuity is actually in his distant future.

[Markdoc]

Re: Glorantha Hero

 

So in effect, the MRQ player using their Glorantha setting starts with a sort of clean slate, as all the established continuity is actually in his distant future.

 

Not only that, but continuity is pretty squishy in Glorantha, anyway - you can have two cultures with different legends of the same event, both of whom can point to solid physical evidence of their claim. It must be a bit like living in the Marvel universe.

 

cheers, Mark

[Kristopher]

Re: Glorantha Hero

 

Not only that' date=' but continuity is pretty squishy in Glorantha, anyway - you can have two cultures with different legends of the same event, both of whom can point to solid physical evidence of their claim. It must be a bit like living in the Marvel universe.[/quote']

 

That's one of the things that I found rather unappealing as I was reading up on Glorantha and Runequest last year.

[Inu]

Re: Glorantha Hero

 

That's one of the things that I found rather unappealing as I was reading up on Glorantha and Runequest last year.

It's good or bad, depending on how it's portrayed. As I said earlier, if you're playing in a country, it doesn't matter how people elsewhere view an event. They're wrong, you're right, so what your culture believes is the only relevant factor.

 

In addition, there are some objective truths (see the aforementioned Windstop event). Unfortunately, since it seems the primary market for HW/HQ is existing fans of the setting, it's really very difficult to track down all of these myths and behind-the-scenes stuff. For instance, at major Glorantha conventions, the brains behind the setting, Greg Stafford, will answer questions for charity, ones which he must answer truthfully. There doesn't seem to be a repository of these answers.

 

So Glorantha is a very dense setting to get into. The only reason I've managed to is our GM is very well-versed in Glorantha lore, including most of that behind-the-scenes stuff.

 

But yeah, if you want the True Answers, Glorantha isn't the setting for you. If you want mythic reality, it really, really is.

[AlHazred]

Re: Glorantha Hero

 

Perhaps it would do well to post some links (QM, take no offense please!)

 

Markdoc's RuneQuest to Hero conversion

SKJAM!'s Cracktwig writeup -- horribly mutated due to the lack of support for html

SCUBA Hero's Spirit Magic to Hero System conversion (second part here)

(That last one is interesting because Tetujin28 told us a bit of apocrypha about ducks.)

Doc Democracy's previous Glorantha Hero thread (which includes Broo and duck writeups as well as Troll writeups -- dark, great, and Mistress Race, as well as trollkin and superior trollkin)

[texaspoet]

Re: Glorantha Hero

 

and for pure world background, the gigantic and amazing glorantha.com can't be beat.

 

Greg's answers to selected questions: http://glorantha.com/new/q-and-a.html'>http://glorantha.com/new/q-and-a.html

 

Maps, Regions, Cosmology, Mythology: http://glorantha.com/new/

 

Cheers!

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Glorantha Hero

 

That's one of the things that I found rather unappealing as I was reading up on Glorantha and Runequest last year.

 

It is fundamental to the setting.

 

The idea is that Heroes can HeroQuest to change the mythic realities of the world.

 

There are myths that are well established in the world and by ritually repeating the myth people can access magical powers, effectively 'tuning in' to the mystic resonances of that myth to get relevant mundane effects. Such rituals are easy HeroQuests, walking down well-trodden paths on the Hero Plane.

 

True heroes will explore off the paths on the Hero Plane and attempt to wrest those myths to slightly different outcomes, thereby changing the resonances and providing them with magical abilities that might never have been seen before.

 

However, there will still be huge numbers of people re-inforcing the old paths.

 

The true test of changing the mythic reality is spreading your truth wider until it supplants the old one. Glorantha is big enough however to support more than one truth and those who claim a truth different to the one held by your tribe are obvious heretics to be treated appropriately.

 

With Glorantha geeks such flexibility often leads to huge arguments over which truth is real. I think that the mantra - Your Glorantha Will Vary - best represents the setting. It has been made such that your campaign will change the setting and, hopefully, mould it around your players who will be the centre of the action.

 

 

Doc

[Kristopher]

Re: Glorantha Hero

 

Meh. There's just something fishy, to me, about a world in which if the characters try really really hard, the sky might be purple, or water might flow uphill -- but only where people listen to them.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Glorantha Hero

 

Meh. There's just something fishy' date=' to me, about a world in which if the characters try really really hard, the sky might be purple, or water might flow uphill -- but only where people listen to them.[/quote']

 

But how cool as a player to be able to influence the world around you to that extent!

 

I guess I'm outing myself as a Builder archetype here....

 

 

Doc

[Lucius]

Re: peating myself

 

Reposted, because some things bear repeating.

 

One of my favorite things from the mythology of Glorantha:

 

It is part of the cosmology that in Myth - which is to say, from before the Dawn of Time, although in telling the stories Humans inevitably have to relate them as narratives, as IF they happenned sequentially in Time - in Myth, or in God Time as they call it, there was a great war in which Chaos very nearly destroyed the whole world. The pivotal battle of the war is called the I Fought We Won Battle.

 

Now, it is worth noting that mortals in Glorantha can become Heroes, which involves transcending Time and entering Myth directly. So it is not only Gods, but Heroes from every age of the world, past and future, who participate in the I Fought We Won Battle.

 

And every one of them saw Chaos take everything, kill everyone. Humakti Heroes, for example, saw (see, will see) their own God utterly destroyed. Every one who fought, was the last one to fight on, alone, struggling to survive in the ultimate Void, knowing that everyone and everything that had existed, that would or could exist, had been annihilited.

 

And every one of them saw the World come back, summoned back into being by their desperate determination to continue fighting when literally All was lost - saw the Gods and Heroes and everything else come back into being, carry on, turn the tide, and ultimately preserve the Cosmos against Chaos.

 

That is why it is called the I Fought We Won Battle. "I" fought, alone - but "We," everyone and everything in existance, won.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary asks, So which is it? Is light a wave or a particle? Come on, it can't be BOTH, that sounds fishy....