[Glorantha] ILH2

Like Mikko I was also disappointed by the relative lack of playable material in ILH2 compared to ILH1.

True it does have keywords galore but I suspect relatively few will be immediately useful to new players.

Worse several of the keywords that are likely to see a lot of use completely contradict official HQ material published only a couple of years ago.

To be more specific:

Agree with Rioderick that ILH2 is not the place for sample characters but would an 'imperial university graduate' or 'lunar college of magic' keyword really have been that difficult to include space-wise (yes one can make up one's own easily enough but the reason we buy these books is so that we don't have to).

I also found the account of illumination frustratingly vague from a game mechanics POV (OK it's 'mysticism' and not easily reducible to keywords but even so I am not sure I am any wiser than before on how to play an illuminate).

Also unimpressed by the Ulurda-Orogeria retconn which I can't help seeing as rather pointless as all that's really happened is that Orogeria's HW affinities have been mapped over to Ulurda's spirits and a previously obscure reference in GROY clarified.

However my biggest disappointment was the rather cursory treatment of the Seven Mothers and lack of more than a couple of sub-cults.

If space was the issue I suspect most of us could have carried on quite happily without ever having heard of Felkenna the Faultless Wife, Oskholeth the Numberer, Oskracota the Animal's Voice or Pinugia the Protectress if in exchange we'd been given more detail on the Lunar cults that will actually play a significant part in any Dragon-Pass based campaign.

My second 7M beef which is the deliberate inconsistency between ILH2 and previous published HQ keywords.

In HQ, the Hero's Book and ILH1 Deezola, Irippi Ontor and Yanafal are theist cults with three listed affinities each and even in ILH2 itself on p.30 YT is described as having Soldier, Combat and Warlord affinities.

However to illustrate the new lunar 'mixed magic without misapplied worship penalties' paradigm YT now has an affinity, a formulary and a bunch of spirits, Deezola two affinities, a formulary and spirits, and IO an affinity, a formulary and a grimoire (although DX only has affinities, TN only has a scripture and Jakaleel's animist and sorcerous cults are completely different denominations in different radiances - so the 7M cults are not even consistently mixed).

So are we now really supposed to believe that every Tarshite or Heortling theist who converts to YT or Deezola will suddenly start reading formularies and interacting with lunar 'spirits' as if he'd been dealing with these all his life?

More to the point, if anyone is already running a YT, Deezola or IO character created using the keywords in HQ and the Hero's Book are they now suddenly supposed to convert their affinities to formularies and spirits (and presumably in an Orwellian touch pretend that they have 'always' been formularies and spirits) with all the hassle that implies game mechanically?

All this could have been avoided with a clarification along the lines of:

'For many lunar immortals the powers they grant their followers are variously manifested as 'feats','spells' or 'spirits' according to local and even individual preferences: a Carmanian Yanafali for instance might well describe his Warlord, Soldier and Combat powers as spells learned from the formulary or grimoires taught by St Yanafal, a Tarshite would see them as affinities and feats granted by his God, a Darsenite would treat them as spirits and a sophisticated Glamourite learn one as an affinity, another as a formulary and the third as a collection of spirits'.

One of the key problems many newbies have with HQ is the multiple otherworlds and magical systems and the 80 pages of rules he has to plough through to understand them - but at least we used to be able to say - 'well that really doesn't matter right now as most of the wizards are way out out west and shamans are pretty rare around here so you won't encounter them often and we'll deal with those chapters of the book when we do'.

As written ILH2 effectively kills that option, contradicts previous HQ publications and steeply ramps up the learning curve for anyone wanting to run lunar characters.

Don't get me wrong - as a Gloranthaphile I love the book, appreciate all the work that has gone into it and want it to sell as many copies as possible, but as a potential player or GM it has made my job that much harder and made the game even harder to sell to newbies.

Neither of these are good things.

Roger Received on Mon 13 Nov 2006 - 16:13:49 EET