[Glorantha] ILH2

In message <771978fc0611130813r1845c24awfe3e5fa89a777ec3@mail.gmail.com> Roger writes:

>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.

I get a feeling that some people are criticising ILH2 for not providing the "evil Lunars" opposition for the Heortlings. It's not intended for that but as a source for Lunar player characters. As such Felkenna is as appropriate as Orane in TR. I can see a lot of fun in a Felkenna PC following her army officer husband to Dragon Pass.

>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.

Just where are these cults defined in HQ, the Hero's Book or ILH1? There's a sample character for Irippi Ontor in the Hero's Book but that's all.

>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).

The Seven Mothers as a separate cult is covered in ILH1. Yes, the Seven Mothers as they appear there is different from their individual cult writeups but that's due to the fact that 7M is a simplified cult for ignorant barbarians. Can't expect them to read and write so spell books aren't any use.

>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?

YGWV but mine says very few Tarshites and even fewer Heortlings convert to the core Lunar cults. They convert to Seven Mothers and one of the things they learn is that Lunars spirits can be friendly and helpful. Remember they will have experience of common magic spirits and essences so it won't be entirely new to them.

>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?

This sort of thing is always going to be a problem with publishing anything official. It's going to change the details of characters who were developed prior to the publication. How you handle it in your campaign is up to you. Personally I'd do the minimum of rewriting the past that I could get away with.

>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.

I'll be quite brutal, I don't think you can GM HQ straight from the books. Having played in a few games and read a lot about different people's ideas I believe I understand the mechanics well enough to do so. If you are running a game for new players you explain the magic each player is going to be using to them - don't try and explain the whole system. Personally I wouldn't start new players as heartland lunars. The mix of cultures, religions and social groups is just too much to take in at once.

-- 
Donald Oddy
http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/