Author: hkokko

Name Hannu Kokko In private life I enjoy roleplaying games, photography and seeing new places and cultures. Retired from working life. In working life While there worked with large scale agile software development and architecture close to my heart and practiced daily. Large scale here is anything involving up to dozens of teams working for the same release. Continuous integration as a cornerstone of making agile development feasible and to help keep the rhythm has been in my focus for quite a bit My latest job before retiring was working as a software development leader, at Elisa as CTO, Smart Energy Solutions. As a secondary occupation a Principal Consultant at Kohilleen Consulting - RD leadership consultancy business. In private life I enjoy roleplaying games, photography and seeing new places and cultures.

Sorcery Tool for Mythras (and friends) updated

Sorcery tool described here has been updated based on user feedback.

The new version of the tool (1.1) contains both the standard durations for spells and the optional long durations. You select as per your GM’s choice using the campaing duration rules field.

The unenchanted iron version is a house rule that is now explained.

The new version can be downloaded from the same location than before in Sorcery Tool for Mythras (and friends like RQ6).

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There are other charts available for RQ6 and Mythras here. RQ and Mythras Encounter generator is found here

Gods War Kickstarter by Sandy Petersen

Gods War in Glorantha kickstarter is ongoing at the moment. Gods War  seems to be the pure Sandy – large monsters (I mean really large) at really cosmic scale – great production quality and humongous replay value with 7 different empires, maybe soon 8. This has bigger figures even than Cthulhu Wars and loads of variety. You will see Mother of Monsters, Dragonewts, Lunars, Broos, Storm Tribe, Dragons and Sea monsters among others. Giants and Titans seem to be possible as well if kickstarter reaches its goals. The Gods War is funded already – now it is only the race to get all the stretch goals.  The only downside to the game (in addition to investment to pledge) I see is that with so much stuff included it will eat up  plenty of game shelf space. It seems that figures could also be used as miniatures in your campaign – Mother of Monsters, I am looking at you as a distinct possibility. The stretch goals of which there are plenty look to be available only via the Kickstarter campaign, basic game will likely come to retailers later on.

If you have not bought yet the Guide To Glorantha and several other ancient tomes in PDF format there is a pledge here that contains a veritable pirates treasure of those.

There are still stretch goals that would be interesting to get – so go and pledge.

Sorcery Tool for Mythras (and friends)

Sorcery in Mythras (and prior to that in RQ6) is one of the most flexible forms of magic. Because it is so flexible it also has a path to mastery for both slightly mathematically challenged and for those mastering the game for others – therefore often busy. I discovered the so called Sorcerors’ Calculus that The Machinerati school of Dark Learners has created to excel rapidly in sorcery. The tool takes into account all the known spell components and the effect of choosing them and prevents the master and apprentice alike from misusing or overreaching both themselves and the laws of magic.

The calculus takes into account how much you can shape the spell components, informs how long the preparation for the spell takes, whether you still have magic points left to do such a complex spell combination. It even can take into account the effect of unenchanted iron that you might wear. It also calculates how much harder the spell is to invoke if you combine spells and readily calculates the reach of the spell and its duration.

There have been many who have exceled with ease using this secret calculus – it is of course desired by the crowds and despised by the masters of sorcery mathematics. There are those who having acquired the Mythras Combat Cards have started to yearn for sorcery cards.

Any feedback is welcome – as gremlins might have installed bugs in the system. 2016-09-03_14-46-31.png

The Sorceror’s Calculus in Excel format is here

More tools and charts for Mythras (and RQ6)

 

Encumbrance Calculator and Equipment List for Mythras

For the longest time I have wanted to make it easier to handle equipment and encumbrance in RQ6 and Mythras.

List of what the character carries can sometimes be longish but it usually contains standard items that exist in the rulebooks.

Encumbrance affects character’s movement speed – which will usually determine whether he can getaway once Sorceress and her minions find out that he has been looting the treasure chest. It also affects all STR and DEX related skills negatively.

Here is an Excel spreadsheet where character can easily mark all the equipment that they either wear or carry in their backpack. Spreadsheet calculates the effect on move and skills either with backpack on or not. Spreadsheet can be printed out and added to character sheet and it can be filed away to be added to later on. Excel has in it all the armor types derived from Mythras Full Edition and Monster Island.

One can easily filter with standard excel features to see only the items that character carries or is interested in. Example Encumbrance Calculator

Other useful charts are available here

Combat Special Effects updated for Mythras Full Edition

 

Mythras full edition has been launched a short while ago. It brings quite a few new special effects with it and also small changes from Mythras Imperative. These will be nice additions to already very smooth and tactical play of Runequest 6.

The game play will be even more interesting with the new Prepare Counter, Remise, Marksman, Pin Down, Drop Foe, Overpenetration and Scar Foe. There are others as well. The new combat cards look to be a cool way to handle the multitude of special effect.

Pay attention to Regain Footing action change as well. Spirit combat looks to be more interesting – have to dive down to that one.

Here are the Special Effect GM Screens updated for Mythras Full edition.  Only the portrait versions have been updated for now.

All the charts are available here. Old ones will remain available here

 

 

Serpent Folk Brotherhoods of Monster Island

Serpent folk of the Monster Island supplement are prone to forming brotherhoods around their profession. The brotherhoods have their headquarters in Brotherhood Guild Houses – buildings that can be targets for inquisitive players.

There are more than a  dozen brotherhoods mentioned  in the supplement.  Brotherhoods are strong even in thase days of waning serpent folk strength.

Here are some guild house denizens that can be generated with the Encounter Generator one could meet while venturing into or close to brotherhood strongholds.

More will come later….

There are also new parties created

..and corresponding individual enemies

Combat Special Effects – Mythras Update

The combat special effects for offensive and defensive have been updated to V1.3. This now contains all the effects from Mythras Imperative and the ones from RQ6 updated to Mythras Imperative way of working. Some tweaks to existing ones have been added. Added also house rule for Shift Location that seems to be popular. Mythras Imperative contains really neat Prepare Counter Special Effect that I cannot wait to start using.

Here is the portrait mode for Offensive Special Effects and here the same for Defensive Special Effects. 

This has also been updated to RQ6 Charts and Tables page

Trade and Markets in Glorantha

What are the things available in the market – local produce of course, groceries, poultry, meat of local kinds. Guide to Glorantha gives background to import and export of the goods. This can give some flavor to your market. I took the data from Guide to Glorantha and used it to create local market availability of goods. The system is as follows:

  • anything the area is known to export is available locally in the market as well
  • anything the area is known to import is available from all the markets that export it
    • artifacts, silk and iron are rare in all the markets.
    • article is common if it is available from nearby region
    • article is rare if it comes from non nearby region OR has to cross ocean
    • rarity could be used as price modifier (for example 30-50-100% more price) as it is exotic and might be considered be of better quality to be worth to transport from far reaches of lozenge
    • rare goods (and even some of the common ones) might not be available and might be also subject to seasonal fluctuation (for example riding beasts, herbs and spices)

Created first markets for Umathela, Fonrit, Nochet, Dragon Pass and Pavis. Others will follow if there seems to be demand.

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Here are some markets created with RQ Encounter Generator that contain above items as trade goods.

In the future more exploration about what you might see in the trading routes as some goods need to pass areas which have no demand for them.

Other useful links might be

Italian version of Mythras Charts and Tables

There is now an Italian translation of several of the tables in my RQ6 Charts and Tables page. Translation was done by Lorenzo Soleri and you can find the tables here and in future also Alephtar Games forum. So if you want to do a translation of any stuff in my pages please contact me and I can provide you some minimal guidelines so we follow the fan policies of respective parties.

Classic Fantasy -Old School Monsters

There seem to be lots of interest in old school recently. Classic Fantasy supplement by the Design Mechanism looks likely to fill the craving for old school for a long time to come. the list of monsters is like who is who in the memory lane of the early days of my gaming in late 1970’s. Spent a few moments in creating templates to generate some of the monsters from my very first games in 1976 or 77. Somebody beat me to the indomitable kobolds but here are a few

The first I remember throwing at my players in those school days was the carrion creeper or crawler.

The next that I vividly remember in cube form was

There were others in the early days as well like

..and when the players grew up in levels they found

The interest seems high as I have rarely seen so many contributed monster encounters in so little time in the RQ Encounter Generator. Please keep contributing and marking them with “Classic fantasy” tag. It would be good if you remember to add the “Abilities” to the monster when you create it – this will help gamemasters in not having to flip back into the pdf or book to check the ability.

There are already bugbears, kobolds, goblins, hobgoblins, gnolls, orcs, hill giants, killer mimics, skeletons, umber hulks…