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Oliver D. Bernuetz's Regions - The Border Marches - The Campaign Back to my home page Back to regions Back to The Border Marches Table of Contents
Before committing fully to Hero Wars some friends and I have decided to run a new mini campaign in order to try the system out better. This campaign will be a combination of sit down roleplaying and PBEM. 'm going to handle the face to face stuff and they're going to play via remote access and run the PBEM portion. You are all members of a Heortland Orlanthi tribe, the Urlanging. The year is 1344 and you face a tough decision. Should you stay and fight the Pharaoh or should you take the chance of heading north into unfamiliar and until fairly recently deadly to humans territory? NB - Many of the links on this page were broken and I haven't bothered to look for fixes. 2. The Campaign This campaign has proven to be far more active than any I've been involved in previously. The e-mail component, which has proven to be quite successful so far, is the main reason. While the face to face campaign only has four players, the e-mail campaign is run by two guys in Singapore and Edmonton and has players in Winnipeg, Edmonton, Tokyo, and Hanover, NH. It's proven to be quite lively and fun so far (July 10 2001). I've added the rules the main PBEM narrator has developed in case anyone is interested. There are rules for the campaign as a whole and for an extended individual encounter. All the characters are Heortling Orlanthi and you can either use the Heortling Keywords (see the Glorantha website for more information) or the 100 word essay method. All characters are generated in the normal fashion. When using the narrative methods you get 100 words to describe your capabilities. In a second paragraph you may use any amount of words to describe your flaws (the idea of this is to encourage flaws which otherwise replace capabilities in the narrative method). Finally, you can write whatever story you want in a third paragraph that helps link you to the campaign, explain your character, etc.. NB : Instead of Dragon Pass Geography you all have Heortland Geography as a cultural skill. See also Languages under Notes and House Rules. NB : The excerpt from the Thunder Rebels book gives a very interesting look at Orlanthi life. See Wesley Quadros' website for a sample HW Orlanthi character with an explanation on how the character was generated. You can follow any of the deities mentioned on the Hero Wars site as well as : Urox (who the Praxians call Storm Bull). Elmal the Orlanthi Sun God. There's a new write-up of the Heortling Deities on the Glorantha website. Names can be taken from your favourite Norse saga or from the list from King of Dragon Pass. Some other good sources for names are : Norse Names - Boys Norse Names - Girls A Simple Guide to Creating Old Norse Names For a bit of fun, try the Orlanthi Naminator and The Orlanthi Epithetizer. I've added the list of clan generating questions from KODP to this site as well. (Of course this has now been pretty much superceded by the new clan generation program on the Glorantha site). Changes from Hero Wars to Thunder Rebels You can see an overview of the abilities changes from Hero Wars to Thunder Rebels here. This doesn't include changes made to magical keywords, just the cultural and a few occupational keywords. Note that there is a separate page grouping all these house rules so you don't have to print this whole page off. We will be using separate language skills. Speak Heortling is one of your cultural keyword skills. Lawspeakers, Priests, Traders and Chieftains get it as an occupational skill as well. Speak Tradetalk is another skill everyone gets at 13. Traders get it at 17 as an occupational skill. a) Rules for the campaign as a whole b) Extended individual encounter Shamans Shamans start with five integrated spirits with a Might of 17. These are all 1/day though you may trade in two 1/day for one totally integrated spirit. Optionally you can roll a Simple Contest combat versus the spirit using your Spirit Combat versus their Might and see what result you achieve. On any sort of defeat I would allow you to just take the spirit as a 1/day. You can of course choose not to and suffer some sort of penalty from being defeated by the spirit. Starting Skill Levels The skill levels for the various keywords are :
Note of course that if a skill is repeated in another keyword at a higher level you would use the higher level (unless you don't want to that is). You should end up with all the skills listed under your three keywords PLUS another ten or so based on your description, maximum of 15. You should count magical items, special mounts, patrons and followers (2 count as one) as additional skills. These all start at 13. Weapon Skills The way weapon skills works is that there are two categories, Close Combat and Ranged Combat. You have a skill level in these two skills. Any abilities listed under that category, e.g. Sword and Shield Fighting, can be used without penalty. Using weapons or weapon combinations NOT listed under these categories results in a penalty. Heortlings normally incure penalties for fighting while mounted. Each of these weapon combinations does count as a separate skill to acquire though they do not go up individually. Twin Weapon Use People who have a skill allowing them to fight with two weapons have the following advantages : 1) They have a spare weapon should anything happen to their prime weapon. 2) They can use the weapon in their off hand without any negative modifiers should their prime hand be disabled. 3) Second attack in a round comes at -2 instead of -3 IF it comes from the second weapon. Additional attacks after that come at the more normal -3 cumulative. 4) Your character look cooler than those wusses with shields. Disadvantages : 1) No shield bonus to their defensive edge. 2) Magical feats to second weapon have to be applied separately. Obviously edges or bonuses that affect the character physically, like strength or speed affect both weapons normally. Basically your character gets a bit of an advantage in their second attack in a round at the cost of losing that +1 armour edge a shield gives. New Abilities When acquiring new abilities you cannot take quasi-magical abilities like Night Vision, Mocking Laugh, Stroke Beard, etc. without some sort of magical cause. Feats, Divine Interventions, Followers and Rules You Never Knew About Feats 1) The limits on the number of feats you can have active at one time are 'indicated' by the feats listed in your affinities. Thus Orlanth Adventurous can have 2 offensive feats and 1 defensive feat, Humakti can have 4 offensive feats (+1 more against undead), and so on. This of course can differ if you learn new feats. 2) Generally spells cannot be cast on one another (exceptions like healing exist). 3) Given enough time you can prepare many feats, given less time you can prepare fewer. 4) The more time you spend on an individual feat the longer it will last (you re-enact it better). You want something to last a whole day it takes a while. You want some to last for one swing that's pretty easy. 5) Initiates and Devotees can always improvise something but this is likely to be one-off feats for one-off situations and they will be taken on a case-by-case basis. The only 'game' limit on Initiate would be the improv modifier (and the fact that the modifier increases for 'lesser known' feats). 6) Initiates use their affinity however at a -3, though when asking
for specific help, i.e. a named feat. If they want to use a feat they don't know they're
at -5. Devotees roll feats they know at base affinity value and feats they don't know at -3. 7) Animals as followers - Independent companion animals act as followers (e.g. alynxes), dependent animals can sometimes augment (e.g. combat trained horses can augment lance attacks). In some situations your horse could be considered a dependent one time and independent the next [eg. charging vs forcing a way through a mob]. This would be settled case-by case. Divine Interventions 1) Anyone within a pantheon can ask for aid (without specifying what
kind of aid) from one of deities within the pantheon by rolling his/her Worship Storm
Tribe ability vs. 14 (or worse depending on the situation). Followers 1) Beginning followers start with their two abilities as stated in Hero Wars. One or both of these can be a keyword. 2) Followers have the approriate Heortling keyword for their gender. This starts at -12 the person followed's best skill. These skills do not go up. 2) Followers also begin as initiates if the same deity as the person followed. Their ability in their affinities starts at -12 and goes up one point for every six points of increase in the character's best skill. Rules You Never Knew About 1) Initiates and devotees can always use their affinities to augment related skills even if they aren't currently using feats. Important Amberi (NPCs and PCs) Make-up of the Clan, Bloodlines, Original Clan, etc. Answers to clan generating questionnaire Ashart Bolison Humakti Warrior Bjarni Bare-Skin Kolating Shaman Cat Boy Yinkin Hunter Cedric the Fox Orlanthi Warrior Dagbjartr Haukson Issaries Trader Per Rasmusson Odaylan Hunter Salinar Mannison Elamli Warrior Skerri Brightspear Vingan Warrior Snorri Horse-Thief Odaylan Hunter The NPCs Blunt Ash-bjorn Orlanthi Warrior Orlev Ice-eyes Humakt Warrior/Lhankor Mhy Lawspeaker Skeli Redbeard Lhankor Mhy Lawspeaker Stories and Myths About the Urlanging and Amberi The Saga of Skerri Brightspear Follow this link to read about the campaign. This page also includes a more detailed clan chronology. This maps shows the vale, where the human neighbours are and Blunt's stead. See The Vale for more information.
This page last modified July 18, 2001
Last updated January 10, 2017 Glorantha is a trademark of Chaosium, Inc. Gloranthan material on this page is copyright ©1997-2016 by Oliver D. Bernuetz or by the author specifically mentioned on an individual page. Glorantha is the creation of Greg Stafford, and is used with his permission. Email me at bernuetz@mymts.net
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