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JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!
Well, you know, human test dum- er, apprentices are a lot more expendable.

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Jarvisi
Apr 17, 2001

Green is still best.

PurpleXVI posted:

SenZar?

So, bad news, the review is probably permanently canned. I got tired of transcribing and scanning everything with my shoddy old scanner, so I sent my SenZar book to get OCR'd and PDF'd so the review would be easier and so the book wouldn't fall apart on me before I was done(because the binding was already coming off in the back).

And somehow the loving postal service managed to damage or destroy a book in a cardboard box which was, within that box, wrapped in three layers of bubble wrap. I say damage OR destroy because they've merely gone "whoop we broke it, here have some money and please don't ask any more questions." But now I'm pressing them for answers on HOW damaged it is, whether I can possibly still continue with the review with what's there, even if it might not be scannable any longer.

So, uh, if anyone else has a copy or can get one, feel free to continue, take over or restart the review. Because I think I literally got my hands on the last SenZar book for sale in all of Europe.

If you're interested in continuing I might be able to help you out

Speleothing
May 6, 2008

Spare batteries are pretty key.
You really ought to press to the postal service that it was a rare, out of print book and you’d like to know more details and get the remnants back.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Jarvisi posted:

If you're interested in continuing I might be able to help you out

I've already made a highly dubious decision that should be able to preserve the review and get me a scanned copy of SenZar.

Speleothing posted:

You really ought to press to the postal service that it was a rare, out of print book and you’d like to know more details and get the remnants back.

On further questioning they admitted that it was literally just lost and they decided to declare it damaged because apparently that was a simpler resolution to things, the fuckers.

oriongates
Mar 14, 2013

Validate Me!


I guess on the upside that could mean it might turn up at some point? I recall me and my wife kept not getting orders from amazon, so we had a series of refunds or resent items from them. Then like a month later we get all those missing packages at once when they apparently turned up from whatever corner of whatever post office they were hiding in.

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!
RE: Ham fantasy.

While it wouldn't be thematically appropriate for Elves to out-tech humans, think of what bullshit they could make if they took interest in Imperial/Dorf tech. You'd have regiments armed with finely-wrought smoothbore (if not rifled) musket-armed elves that outrange and are more accurate than any mortal. Elyrian reavers would turn into Dragoons/Winged Hussars overnight. Swordmasters/White Lions of Thrace augmenting their charge with grenades. And that's before you get into extreme stuff, like Ithmilar plated fast steam tank (shaped as either a dragon or a swan, because elves), accurate, non-exploding cannons that elves use like anti-material rifles to sniper giants, and hell-blaster volley gun tachankas that are either drawn by lions or flying.

Battle Mad Ronin
Aug 26, 2017
An elf admit anything any other race have made might be more effective than what they’ve come up with themselves? Fat chance.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Battle Mad Ronin posted:

An elf admit anything any other race have made might be more effective than what they’ve come up with themselves? Fat chance.

"Indoor plumbing? A silly fad for the younger races. No, we're quite, quite happy with our master-crafted, ithilmar-plated outhouses that put the finest human mansions to shame with their artistry." Said the High Elf ambassador, while he desperately regretted Ulthuan's official policies on importing or adopting human and dwarven technology.

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!
Those outhouses are older and sturdier than most human mansions, though.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



JcDent posted:

RE: Ham fantasy.

While it wouldn't be thematically appropriate for Elves to out-tech humans, think of what bullshit they could make if they took interest in Imperial/Dorf tech. You'd have regiments armed with finely-wrought smoothbore (if not rifled) musket-armed elves that outrange and are more accurate than any mortal. Elyrian reavers would turn into Dragoons/Winged Hussars overnight. Swordmasters/White Lions of Thrace augmenting their charge with grenades. And that's before you get into extreme stuff, like Ithmilar plated fast steam tank (shaped as either a dragon or a swan, because elves), accurate, non-exploding cannons that elves use like anti-material rifles to sniper giants, and hell-blaster volley gun tachankas that are either drawn by lions or flying.
I figure elves would take a completely different attitude to this sort of thing. Like they'd have a loose unit of woodsman rifle types that you'd think, this is just irregular infantry, sharpshooters perhaps, and you're kind of right because they all have loving magic bullets like Der Freischutz.

Ratoslov
Feb 15, 2012

Now prepare yourselves! You're the guests of honor at the Greatest Kung Fu Cannibal BBQ Ever!

PurpleXVI posted:

"Indoor plumbing? A silly fad for the younger races. No, we're quite, quite happy with our master-crafted, ithilmar-plated outhouses that put the finest human mansions to shame with their artistry." Said the High Elf ambassador, while he desperately regretted Ulthuan's official policies on importing or adopting human and dwarven technology.

Followed shortly by some miraculously surviving documents from the really old days proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that indoor plumbing was invented by some ancient elf, now long gone, and now everyone will construct indoor plumbing in honor of his mighty deeds of scholarship.

Does a elf poo poo in the woods? Not any more.

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!
Except for Wood Elves, who refuse to poo poo anywhere else.

Deptfordx
Dec 23, 2013

Elves. Not even once. :colbert:

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!

Deptfordx posted:

Elves. Not even once. :colbert:

Too late, the Elf Lobby (Pointy Ears Better LLC) has already infiltrated 4chan. Reddit's next and then it's dead gay comedy forums.

Only registered members can see post attachments!

Deptfordx
Dec 23, 2013

Oh /pol/, never change*.:allears:

TBF. their is some responsibility on human women for not reaching the standard of elfbabes.:byoscience:

*Please change immediately.

Deptfordx fucked around with this message at 10:48 on Jun 17, 2018

Battle Mad Ronin
Aug 26, 2017
If anyone is seriously interested in the idea of musket-armed elves, that game already exists and is called “Flintloque”. While I can’t in all honesty call the miniatures good, they are very characterful. The people behind the game are supposedly very nice chaps, and enthusiatically support it.

Only registered members can see post attachments!

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
I think given the tech base of the Old World, the Elves are kinda at the point where they don't see the point in adopting firearms when their longbows can match the range and they've literally spent centuries perfecting their aim. Though I'm sure there's a few Elves who've gotten their own muskets they've lovingly crafted and customised to suit their own needs.

The Lone Badger
Sep 24, 2007

The Warhammer world is still using black powder. Which leaves a coating of soot and assorted residues on everything. Can't imagine elves being that keen on it.

Do Dwarves use gromril barrels to contain higher pressures, or is it too precious for that?

OvermanXAN
Nov 14, 2014
Elves don't have a compelling reason to switch from their longbows to the currently available firearms in WHF, for the reason that Ghost Leviathan said. Even for the Dwarves it's legitimately a toss-up between their crossbows and what firearms they have available, and not just because of conservatism. The setting is at a point where guns are not yet universally better than other options, but you can be fairly sure that it's on track to hit that point and everyone *will* adjust their combat doctrines at that point if they can. Probably would suck royally for the Tomb Kings and Lizardmen, though.

Josef bugman
Nov 17, 2011

Pictured: Poster prepares to celebrate Holy Communion (probablY)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund
Tomb Kings will probably be fine and I can't imagine that fighting in a jungle at close quarters emphasises the power of fire arms.

Though now I do want a skink regiment with tiny Shakos.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

You know, I decided to look up what Ithilmar actually was, and it's this Mystery Material(tm) that literally only shows up at one place in the world that the elves control. I can't help but feel that it should be the hull material of some ancient, crashed Old One ship that the elves are salvaging, with the impact having so thoroughly annihilated the ship that it's scattered through the ground more like geological deposits than whole chunks of ship plating.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

PurpleXVI posted:

You know, I decided to look up what Ithilmar actually was, and it's this Mystery Material(tm) that literally only shows up at one place in the world that the elves control. I can't help but feel that it should be the hull material of some ancient, crashed Old One ship that the elves are salvaging, with the impact having so thoroughly annihilated the ship that it's scattered through the ground more like geological deposits than whole chunks of ship plating.

Also note Ulthuan was originally created by the Old Ones to be a habitat for the elves, according to some fluff.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009
Probation
Can't post for 17 days!

OvermanXAN posted:

Probably would suck royally for the Tomb Kings and Lizardmen, though.

The lizardmen already have lasers, though.

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


Josef bugman posted:

Tomb Kings will probably be fine and I can't imagine that fighting in a jungle at close quarters emphasises the power of fire arms.

Though now I do want a skink regiment with tiny Shakos.

Skinks with tiny versions of everything. Tiny uniforms, tiny drums, tiny banners, marching songs they sing off key and with the wrong words.

White Coke
May 29, 2015

The Lone Badger posted:

The Warhammer world is still using black powder. Which leaves a coating of soot and assorted residues on everything. Can't imagine elves being that keen on it.

Do Dwarves use gromril barrels to contain higher pressures, or is it too precious for that?

Too precious and they probably can't work it finely enough to make barrels. They can make plates of gromil, but only Grugni could make gromil chainmail. Also the dwarfs have better blackpowder than humans, it even smells better (according to dwarfs) so it probably leaves less residue too.

potatocubed
Jul 26, 2012

*rathian noises*

Cythereal posted:

The lizardmen already have lasers, though.

Just give me Predator but in the jungles of Lustria.

Wrestlepig
Feb 25, 2011

my mum says im cool

Toilet Rascal
In 1977, A game called Dungeons and Dragons was invented. Almost immediately after, a budding anthropology student and game designer thought he could do a better job. The result was a long-running series, the latest version of which is:



Runequest is a very interesting game from a design and history standpoint. A lot of the contemporaries of old D&D do interesting stuff, coming from before rpg design as a concept really existed. Although these things often don’t make any sense, are too complicated, or show a weird perspective on things, some of them succeed through having mostly good design, good settings and being fun to play. These contemporaries, like Talislanta, Tekumel and Runequest have been chugging along out of the spotlight, fueled by cult followings and Kickstarters as they refine the old game into something more modern. Sometimes it even turns out something good.

The introduction is mostly the game stating its case, going over the basics. There’s a summary of differences with D&D and similar games: There are no character classes or levels, the system is based on percentage rolls, using 2 ten-sided dice for skill checks, and being set in Glorantha. This edition is tailored a lot more to the setting, although it’s a very practical and approachable look that tells you what you need to know to play the game and exist in the setting without talking about the god learners for an hour, as I personally love to do. Unusually, the intro talks about the themes of the game: The mythic relationship between Man and God.

rq 4th edition posted:

Mythology is more than old lies and stories, pseudo-scientific explanations for natural phenomena, or hidden secrets of forgotten lore. It is a state of mind and a way of life. It has a sentience and life of its own: a power. RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha lets you experience that state of mind and explore that way of life through the mythic realm of Glorantha.

It also makes a mention of ‘Maximum Game Fun’, a principle where you should prioritise what the most fun option would be. It’s a good summary of what most games would encourage in some form, but I really question how much it entered the design. There are a lot of rules that really don’t match that philosophy
The end of the introduction is talking about the unique features of Runequest. They haven’t been unique for a while but they’re a big part of the game’s pitch, so I’ll sum them up here
  • Violence has consequences: Combat is very lethal and shouldn’t be taken lightly, and there’s no Hero Points or easy out if you take a spear to the head. This is the first instance of maximum game fun going out the window.
  • Everyone has magic: Magic and the gods are real and manifest in the world, at least indirectly. This lets you blast people with lightning
  • Runes: Everything is made up of these cosmological building blocks. Some are elements like Fire and Darkness, others are concepts like Truth, Death and Harmony that are set up in opposition to another.
  • Ideals and Motivations: Heroes in Glorantha are driven by strong Passions as well as their spiritual ties to the gods and their conflicts. These will get a bigger discussion later
  • Heroquests: Your players can reenact myths and bring the god’s power into the mundane world. These are really cool but not actually discussed in the book so you’re out of luck.
  • Emphasis on Community: In an ideal form the characters are tied to a community as a source of motivation, drama and fun. The book recommends stuff like playing as siblings, and there’s a great deal of mechanical support for this later
  • Keep it Bronze Age/Fantastic: this is mostly about flavoring the game and characters. put limited literacy and wine stored in amphorae alongside giant mountains and flying monster bats. It acknowledges that your Glorantha will vary, but tries to keep it on a particular channel

Up next: Lorechat itt

Wrestlepig fucked around with this message at 04:51 on Jun 26, 2018

Subjunctive
Sep 12, 2006

ask me about nix or tailscale

Wrestlepig posted:

In 1977, A game called Dungeons and Dragons was invented. Almost immediately after, a budding anthropology student and game designer thought he could do a better job. The result was a long-running series, the latest version of which is:



[*]Heroquests: Your players can reenact myths and bring the god’s power into the mundane world. These are really cool but not actually discussed in the book so you’re out of luck.

I am really looking forward to this, but not having Heroquests seems like a really big gap. I think of that as the big tool characters have for changing the world.

Wrestlepig
Feb 25, 2011

my mum says im cool

Toilet Rascal

Subjunctive posted:

I am really looking forward to this, but not having Heroquests seems like a really big gap. I think of that as the big tool characters have for changing the world.

I should mention this is just the player's handbook, all the mechanics for that are probably GM-facing.

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


If I remember right this is RuneQuest... 7?

Speleothing
May 6, 2008

Spare batteries are pretty key.
Yo dudes, let's skip having Glorantha lorechat for the eighth time and go strait to mechanics before you get bogged down and distracted by minutiae (again)

Lynx Winters
May 1, 2003

Borderlawns: The Treehouse of Pandora

Speleothing posted:

Yo dudes, let's skip having Glorantha lorechat for the eighth time and go strait to mechanics before you get bogged down and distracted by minutiae (again)

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Runequest has mechanics?

hyphz
Aug 5, 2003

Number 1 Nerd Tear Farmer 2022.

Keep it up, champ.

Also you're a skeleton warrior now. Kree.
Unlockable Ben
Betrayal At House On The Hill, 15

I haven't forgotten! I haven't forgotten! Excuse the toast!

Invisible Traitor
Trigger: Find the Ring in the Catacombs, Gallery, Gymnasium, or Kitchen.

What would you if you were suddenly turned invisible? Try to recover? Investigate how this was possible? Hang around the opposite sex's changing rooms while groaning? Get a hell of a job as a Hollywood FX assistant? Suddenly decide to murder all your friends?

Yea, the last one doesn't really belong. But that's apparently what they've decided to do. I guess the Ring was the One Ring or something. Well, or not.

Whoever found the Ring writes down the name of a room on a piece of paper. That's where they now are. They move normally, but instead of moving a piece, they just write down the room where they are. They can still discover new rooms, but doing so gives away their location. Stealing items is now a flat roll rather than an opposed roll. Attacking the traitor is still as normal, although the heroes have to guess what room they are in; but when they traitor attacks, they can make a bare-handed "sneak attack" to roll damage on half the #players in dice. What they aren't told is that after the attack, the hero can make a Knowledge roll and on a result higher than 3, they know something about the traitor's location - just their immediate vicinity on a 3+, or their final location on a 5+.

The heroes can also use the Skull to find the floor the traitor is on with a Sanity 4+ roll, which is pretty drat useless, and the Spirit Board with a Knowledge 4+ to find the symbol (if any) that is on the room they are in, which might be useless and might not. Go kill the traitor. That's it.

Assuming that this doesn't come to a horrible stalemate with neither side wanting to attack, it still seems a bit dull. There are no clues gained by attacks and the invisible traitor can pass straight through rooms with heroes in them provided they don't attack them (it still costs them movement, but that's all). It would have been much better if this revealed that the traitor had passed so that the heroes could build a constricting net, but it doesn't, so it's just guesses all around.

Comes The Hero
Trigger: Find the Mask in the Abandoned Room, Dining Room, Furnace Room or Servants' Quarters.

We're definitely into a low-effort section by now. The person with the highest Might has apparently been invincible and invulnerable all along (never mind any damage they took while Snooping around), and was granted this in exchange for opening a gate to Hell, which they've decided to do tonight. They reset their traits to starting values, and get a free Weapon from the deck. Their task is to kill a hero, drag their body (moving at half speed) to the Catacombs, Chasm, or Pentagram Chamber, and roll Sanity/Knowledge 4+ to open the gate to Hell. Nothing can change the traitor's traits or cause them damage; they can't be attacked; and nothing can be stolen from them.

Now, of course, you just know that the traitor's going to have some horrible weakness that isn't in their book and that's going to define the game for them, right? Sure. What the heroes have to do is to go to the room where the haunt was revealed, where there is now a statue. They give the statue one of four items, whereupon it comes to life, with all traits at 8. Even then, it doesn't act independently, though; a heroes has to go into the room with the statue and psychically bludgeon it into moving with a Knowledge/Sanity roll, which moves it the number of spaces rolled. If the traitor starts a turn in the room with it, they lose a point from one of their traits based on which item was used to awaken the statue.

Ugh. This just seems like another horrible one. First of all, there's the issue of the traitor just hanging around in the room with the statue (because the heroes do put a token in that room to indicate it's special, even though the traitor might not know why). I can see they're trying to have there be some tactics regarding heroes setting up chains to move the statue onto the traitor wherever he/she goes, but doing so would make them awfully vulnerable. Also, choosing to have the statue lower Speed seems to be a better choice than anything else, because it'll make it easier for the statue to catch them.

The Star-Sickness
Trigger: Find the Spear in the Abandoned Room, Catacombs, Gymnasium or Master Bedroom.

Aha! We're out of the low-effort zone now, and into the second of the two haunts (the other one being Guillotines) that use the hidden traitor rules - and even change them up in a way. Each player gets two numbered tokens, selected at random. Whoever gets the number 1 is infected with the alien virus. The first time in each turn anyone's in a room with another explorer, they must swap two tokens of their choice. Anyone who gets the 1 in a swap has just been infected too (the person who gave it away is still infected).

Every turn, the ambient atmosphere makes a Might attack against everyone in the house - infected or otherwise - with a strength equal to the turn number. This is important because if someone who was infected dies, they instead become an Alien, a monster with fixed stats. Aliens can't spread or receive the virus, but they can kill other explorers. The haunt is over when everyone is an Alien, dead, or.. well, it also says that infected heroes count towards triggering the loss condition, but exactly how you're supposed to establish that all remaining heroes are infected without giving the game away if they aren't isn't stated.

Oh, and - arrrgh, we have the usual alarm bell ringing about a condition that triggers when "everyone" is an Alien. They've tried to work around this with Standard Fudge Number 2, which is saying that the last person to be infected loses.

Now, what are our heroes supposed to be trying to do? They're trying to make a serum to act as a cure. Ok, that's technically an antiserum.. and that's not how they work.. but hey. To do this, they need to collect a number of tokens in the Research Lab equal to the #players. Tokens are gotten by either making a 5+ Knowledge roll in the lab with a bonus equal to the number of people there and a further bonus if the Book is present; or by gathering herbs to make the serum (just to show that the authors really have no idea what a serum is) in any of the Plant-themed rooms, which only requires a 3+ Knowledge but requires the token to be transported to the Lab afterwards.

Whoever creates or brings the last token gets the Serum. They can inject themselves or anyone else with the serum with a movement point, or a Speed attack if the target is unwilling. Injecting an uninfected hero means they no longer take Might damage and no longer trade tokens. Injecting an infected hero or an Alien instantly kills them. Also, if an infected hero is killed by something else while the person with the Serum is in the room, they can give them a quick shot of serum and instantly kill the Alien. If every living explorer has been injected with the serum, the heroes win - presumably even if there are still Aliens on the board, which is a bit odd, but ok.

So. I really, really like the idea. There are actual board games (Panic Station) which have only this premise, and here you get it plus 49 other scenarios too, even though some of them are dubious. The "last traitor loses" fudge is a bit of an unfortunate one, though - although it's not too easy to do the "rush to get infected" exploit unless the entire group agrees to do it and people start openly declaring that they are infected. That said, the issue with "how do you establish if everyone is infected without giving away who is" could be decidedly problematic, and there could actually be an interesting issue if an Alien has to pick which hero to target where one is infected, the other is not, and the Alien player doesn't know which is which. Finally, there's a potential issue with the distance between the plant rooms and the Lab, but this seems really interesting.

FMguru
Sep 10, 2003

peed on;
sexually

REIGNING YOSPOS COSTCO KING

wiegieman posted:

If I remember right this is RuneQuest... 7?
More or less

1979 Chaosium - RQ first edition - the original (small print run, very hard to find)
1980 Chaosium - RQ second edition - reprint of RQ1 with errata and added appendices. Reissued kickstarted in 2016 by Chaosium as RuneQuest Classic
1984 Avalon Hill - RQ third edition - more complicated rules (fatigue points, sorcery) and not set in Glorantha
2006 Mongoose - MRQ first edition (RQ4?) - reissue of RQ with typical Mongoose attention to detail and playtesting. Generic core but with a full Glorantha support line. Also had a SRD which led to multiple offshoots (OpenQuest, Revolution D100, etc)
2010 Mongoose - MRQ second edition (RQ5?) - cleaned-up reissue of MRQ 1E. Mongoose later lost the RQ trademark and republished the rules (sans Glorantha) as their generic Legend RPG
2012 Design Mechanism - RQ sixth edition - complete, mechanically complex fantasy game with no Glorantha (but a great set of historical fantasy modules). They also lost the RQ trademark and reissued the game as the Mythras RPG
2018 Chaosium - RuneQuest Glorantha - Seventh edition? Sure, why not.

Note this doesn't include all the different BRP offshoots of RuneQuest (Stormbringer, Ringworld, Call of Cthulhu, Pendragon, ElfQuest, Other Suns, etc etc) or the narrative games that are set in Glorantha (Pendragon Pass, Hero Wars, HeroQuest, etc)

It's...complicated

Supposedly, the origin of RQ/BRP was when Greg was fishing around for an RPG system for his Glorantha setting (which at the time existed entirely of his collection of notebooks and the his self-published wargame White Bear & Red Moon). He didn't like D&D (of which, funny story, he probably was the first ever person to purchase a copy of), and he tried to adapt it to the Arduin system but was unhappy with the results (Arduin stats of the characters from WB&RM were printed in an early fanzine). At a party in Berkeley he met a couple of SCA dudes and challenged them to make a RPG system to match his setting, and the result was RQ. A lot of the "realism" present in the rules is realism by way of lots of SCA fighting (the fumble table in particular is pretty much an exhaustive list of every dumb thing the authors had observed in SCA tourneys)

Finally: Six Ages (the successor to King of Dragon Pass) will be out on June 21 for iOS and other platforms. :toot: :woop:

FMguru fucked around with this message at 02:24 on Jun 18, 2018

Midjack
Dec 24, 2007



Night10194 posted:

Runequest has mechanics?

It's not called "Rulequest" for nothing.

Speleothing
May 6, 2008

Spare batteries are pretty key.

Midjack posted:

It's not called "Rulequest" for nothing.

Huh, judging from the other F&F entries I'd have thought it was a freeform setting with a few d10s for when you absolutely need a rng.

But if there are actually mechanics, I'd love to hear about them?!?!??

Zereth
Jul 9, 2003



Speleothing posted:

Huh, judging from the other F&F entries I'd have thought it was a freeform setting with a few d10s for when you absolutely need a rng.

But if there are actually mechanics, I'd love to hear about them?!?!??
You're thinking of the other game system for Glorantha, Heroquest.

EDIT: And the Guide to Glorantha is just, like, a textbook about the world and doesn't have any game systems in it at all.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso
Yeah, the way the Runequest system was made for Glorantha, but is also used for other things, and there are other Glorantha games that use different rulesets...it's confusing.

Maybe not as confusing as Tekumel, though.

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JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!
Cults: Spitalians, pt. 3



Degenesis Rebirth
Primal Punk
Chapter 3: Cults


Hygienics

The doctor cult is, unsurprisingly, somewhat concerned about this whole “being clean” thing. When one enters the Spital, he or she can expect an enema to flush the bowels of bacteria (this is probably unhealthy) and to get hydrated with several liters of water (which also seems unhealthy unless done over several days). A full body shave follows and then “a vile brew that burns the skin and reddens the eyes” is applied as a disinfectant before the ceremonial bleaching of the butthole.

Specialist Hygienists oversee this procedure. Spitalians actually consider this close to a sacred rite – a “de-fearing” as the book puts it, since it removes the fear of being unclean. Of course, the most serious worry is being a Leperos without knowing it.

Primer Knowledge

If anybody knows their stuff about the Primer, Sepsis and the Psychonauts, it's the Spitalian Cult. That's why people take their advice a little too hard at times: the book gives example of villages going out of their way to kill bugs, as they can be carrying Sepsis spores.

Primer Knowledge posted:

The people fear the Sepsis less than a Spitalian platoon finding Sepsis in their village.

Well, we all know what happens to villages that harbor the mark of the mutant Sepsis: :flame:

Primer Knowledge posted:

The doctors carry the myth of their omniscience like a shield and give the people simple basics. That’s all they need and that they can stand.

You might be able to handle the truth, but you probably can't stand it! :v:

Spitalian knowledge is hard one to come by, and the book claims that ten thousand doctors have died to gain it. Never the less, the Epigenetics established “a few general rules with their histone theory” only a few years ago. The scientific work is quite mundane: samples are tested, live Psychonauts are used to discover their reactions to changing temperatures and various diseases, soil samples from craters are checked for Primal primer, and so on.

A Spitalian knows a lot about this alien disease. He has seen Sepsis in both experiments and first hand.

Primer Knowledge posted:

The results of a spore field’s metamorphosis are as canonicalas the dosage of EX, the cure-all against spore infestation.

Waaait, there's a cure against Sepsis? Why hasn't it been mentioned before? You'd think Voyavodes and other clanner dildos would be scrambling to kiss rear end, suck dick and generally kowtow before Spitalians to get some of that good poo poo.

Maybe it's scarce because it's produced in some edgy grimdark way (like boiling baby Psychonauts). Maybe it's an euphemism for “EXplosives.” Maybe this book is just not laid out well.

However, not all knowledge in the Spital is free. In particular, the Hive and prosthetics research groups are super secretive.

Noumenon

SIDE SECTION! So, the Noumenon Vocalizer taps into the Earth Chakra (God drat do I hate this stupid loving name) and Psychonaut network and relays it as a “sequence of tones.” Some even have Chronicler-made screens to show the oscillations. All have an electrode-connected Mollusk at the core. Spitalians learn to read the what the Vocalizer says... and that's where the explanation ends. Could be useful to know what data can be gleaned from the drat things.

Humanity's Saviors

Humanity's Saviors posted:

In the end, everyone must answer one question and one question only: Is he with the Spitalians or with the Aberrants and thus against Humanity?

The Anabaptists are trusted allies, in that they decided through faith, not science, that all Primer stuff must die. Hellvetics spent a lot of time just watching the Aberrants... right until Psychokinetics used Filaments to send fleas and ticks into their tunnels. Now they're scrambling for Spitalian aid.

The other Cults haven't expressed strong opinions either way, and help spread sepsis inadvertently or, as is the case with Apocalyptics, by choice.

Humanity's Saviors posted:

They cannot expect mercy from the Spitalians.

Except that we saw that Spitalians are more than willing to work with Scourgers, Neolybians, Chroniclers and probably anyone else who's down to gank some Psychonauts. Nope, no mercy.

Field Work

Spitalians are quite active in the outside world, exploring regions affected by Sepsis, healing people and generally being out and about. They do it all clad in “impermeable neoprene suits.” Said suits have membrane-covered holes for injections in a few strategic spots: this allows for injections that don't expose the body to the atmosphere. The pee is collected in a bottle affixed to the thigh – it will later be checked for spore and infections. Disinfectant lime is used in plague struck areas - the whole body - especially such exposed areas as the skull - is covered. You might remember that the Spitalian in the "Sacrifice Everything" trailer does just that.

Next time: "Joint the Spitalians," they said. "It will be fun," they said.

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