Runes, Affinities, Abilities, Lay Members, and Initiates in HQG

[Christopher Kubasik]

My brain is swirling around the matter of Runes, Affinities, Abilities, Lay Members, and Initiates. I’m confused (and I don’t know why.) Looking for some help.

I’ve tried to organize my questions as best I can below. All of the assumptions are based off reading from the HeroQuest Glorantha book:
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1. An Adult with Runes, independent of any cult, can
• Breakout a specific Ability from one of his Runes
• As emotional quality of the character in general
Question 1) Are these assumptions true?
Question 2) Is the Breakout Ability from the Rune by the power of the Hero or the God? Does the Breakout Ability have overly supernatural effects? (I assume this is a Hero powered Ability, but I’m checking.)
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2. Runes can be used as a Lay Member of a Cult with Affinities to the Cult
• As an Augment (without special overtly supernatural effects)
Question 3) Do I have this right?
Question 4) This means, I think, that a Rune a character possesses that is not Affiliated with a Cult can never be used as an Augment. Is this correct?
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3. An Initiate of a God can use a the highest rated Affiliated Rune of the God as a “Divine Rune Affinity” and with this Rune…
• Use it as an emotional ability per the Rune to make sure the character is in alignment with his God’s chosen behaviors
• Use it as a broad Ability in and of itself (with overly magical effects)
• Create a Breakout ability from it exactly as a Layman
Question 5) Is the use of Breakout Abilities from a Rune for Layman Identical to the Rune Breakout abilities of Lay Members? Is there a difference at all? (And if there isn’t a difference, isn’t this a powerful thing to hand to Lay Members?_
Question 6) I’m assuming that the Personality/Emotional element for Lay Members is a guideline, whereas once one becomes an Initiate the Affiliate Rune ratings become a requirement (as a Flaw and so on). Is this correct?

[Philip Groff]

Any adult can use any rune they have as augments, though not with overtly supernatural descriptions.

Initiates of a God (and the equivalent for the other three traditions (spirit, sorcery and Lunar)) can use their runes directly as broad abilities, can create breakout abilities that are narrow, and can describe their actions in overtly supernatural terms.

Devotees (and equivalents (e.g., Shamans) can do all the above, plus can have feats — which are themselves keywords as breakouts of their dominant Runes.

Finally, the more committed you are to your runic tradition that more of a character descriptor and flaw the rune(s) become and the narrower your specialization needs to be.

That’s my $0.02 worth.

[Christopher Kubasik]

Thanks Phillip.

I think the key thing I was missing is that Rune Augments for non-Initiates/Devotees are non-magian in all ways; they are simply innately special qualities of the character because of the rune. (At least that’s how I’ll play it. The text sort of suggests that, but it is not explicit.)

[Clay]

It’s the first one that’s a little confusing. I don’t enforce runes as personality “traits” for characters not initiated to a god. I suggest that characters with strong (but uninitiated) runes consider the effect of such a powerful relationship to the rune. For example, I have a character with a very high Illusion rune who is nonetheless initiated to Issaries through his Communication rune. I expect him to act according to the Communication affinity (after the fashion of Issaries) if he expects to use Issaries’ magic with it. I also encourage him to realize that his very powerful Illusion affinity has SOME impact on his behavior (and, interestingly, can contradict his Issaries traits). This is leading to interesting play. I want to stress, however, I do not require the player to honor the Illusion personality traits like the Communication traits; I just encourage him to consider his strong Illusion rune has an effect, like the gravity well of a large, invisible rogue planet, on his behavior.
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I squint at my players’ behavior when they are initiates, gently insisting that the character’s strongest rune affinity (associated with the god) act as a guide to the character’s behavior if the player wishes to access that magic.
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I have yet to allow any character not within a cult or tradition to build a break-out from a rune affinity. I feel this undermines the meta-reason to belong to a cult or tradition. I have done this by simply not mentioning it to the players and directing them to cults or traditions to gain break-outs in their runes. I have not “forbidden” it; I am just waiting for a good reason to permit it. None has presented itself yet.
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To simplify your list a bit, at a base level, any rune affinity can be used as a credible augment to another ability by anyone. It cannot be overtly magical. Runes should exert a “gravitational pull” on a character’s behavior, especially very strong affinities, but only initiates will find their behavior tightly orbiting their runes.
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Initiates gain a deeper access to their runes. They can use them directly and can make incredible (i.e., magical) actions with them within the ambit of their god (although such use is broad use). They may add break-outs, representing specific incredible actions in the fashion of their god. In return, they find their behavior modified, if not constrained, by their runes.
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Devotees gain access to feats and heroforming, both of which have the side-effect of the devotee becoming one with his god and losing his identity. Devotees should seem like living embodiments of their god to others; clearly their behavior/personality must reflect this.
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There isn’t a straight equivalence between Shamans and Devotees. Shamans are not behaviorally constrained by their runes like Devotees, but they are subject to taboos. For a good example, just build a “by the book” Kolating and select three or so of the Seven Spirits tradition spirits to bind to the character. Now look at your taboos. You’ll quickly begin to understand why powerful shamans, with many attending spirits – each with a taboo, act like mad men to normal people.
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Although not directly an answer to your question, I had my players dealing with some related difficulty regarding how they should “act” within the difference systems of magic in Glorantha. I wrote this to help them: http://www.clan-amok.org/#!gm-magic-systems.md

[Roko Joko]

Christopher, the only HGQ rules difference between the runes of initiates and non-initiates is that initiates can use them directly for magic, rather than for augments, breakouts, or as personality traits.

[Harald Smith]

I treat runes as keywords that represent aspects of the character, both their personality and their innate magical affinity.

1. An Adult with Runes, independent of any cult, can
• Breakout a specific Ability from one of his Runes
• As emotional quality of the character in general
Question 1) Are these assumptions true?
Question 2) Is the Breakout Ability from the Rune by the power of the Hero or the God? Does the Breakout Ability have overly supernatural effects? (I assume this is a Hero powered Ability, but I’m checking.)

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For me, those assumptions are true. Now, the runes are not necessarily dominating a given heroes personality, but I do think they should be factors.
As for breakout abilities from the rune, I generally feel they reflect a magical quality, and will have some visible, magical effect. You can explicitly state what type of magical ability it is (i.e. Feat, Spell, Spirit, in which case it derives from God, Grimoire, or Spirit) or have it as a simple named ability. In the latter case, I consider it either an inherent talent or a simple magic (what would have been Battle Magic or Common Magic in older systems). Personally, I like these as it allows for some interesting color.
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2. Runes can be used as a Lay Member of a Cult with Affinities to the Cult
• As an Augment (without special overtly supernatural effects)
Question 3) Do I have this right?
Question 4) This means, I think, that a Rune a character possesses that is not Affiliated with a Cult can never be used as an Augment. Is this correct?

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Yes, as an augment. However, I still present them as a magical effect, partially because I’ve always liked the magic-rich view of Glorantha. E.g. Ingwald has the Fire rune and the breakout ability Create Fire. He can use the breakout ability to magically give his spear point a fiery tip, augmenting its ability against forces of darkness or even just to start a fire in a haystack. It would be a stretch at best or most likely useless against something of water or earth.
As for question 4, no, those runes can still be used as augments. What you cannot do is use the Rune as a keyword (i.e. a general ability to do anything associated with that rune).
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3. An Initiate of a God can use a the highest rated Affiliated Rune of the God as a “Divine Rune Affinity” and with this Rune…
• Use it as an emotional ability per the Rune to make sure the character is in alignment with his God’s chosen behaviors
• Use it as a broad Ability in and of itself (with overly magical effects)
• Create a Breakout ability from it exactly as a Layman
Question 5) Is the use of Breakout Abilities from a Rune for Layman Identical to the Rune Breakout abilities of Lay Members? Is there a difference at all? (And if there isn’t a difference, isn’t this a powerful thing to hand to Lay Members?_
Question 6) I’m assuming that the Personality/Emotional element for Lay Members is a guideline, whereas once one becomes an Initiate the Affiliate Rune ratings become a requirement (as a Flaw and so on). Is this correct?

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I use breakout abilities from a rune identically between a Layman and a cult Lay Member. There really is no difference. A lay member of a cult just begins to learn the superficial aspects/myths/stories of the cult. They haven’t changed otherwise.
Initiation opens up a Divine Rune Affinity to one specific rune. Now that rune becomes a keyword that is usable as more than an augment. E.g. Beorht as an initiate of Orlanth through the Movement rune can attempt various actions based on that rune: run faster, dodge blow, race the wind, etc. Thus, he can create a magical effect which he has not previously described or broken out as an explicit ability (basically he can start acting like his god/goddess). It works just like Thane or Heortling at that point.
Once you become a devotee of a cult, you can explicitly break out these generic rune keyword abilities as Feats. At that point you are heroforming your god and must act like the god for the feat to work properly. (And from game PoV you get specific ability bonus for using Feats.)
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Hopefully that provides some additional thoughts on how you can work with these.

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