Now that I've got Cults of Glorantha II a few days early, I've had a chance to skim through it quickly and it looks pretty good. It seems better than Cults of Glorantha I and is probably the best Glorantha book so far from Mongoose. It looks like Jeff isn't going to have to eat crockery of any sort.
The shamanism rules are very good. Hsunchens have a way of Integrating Spirits that should be available to a lot more people as it is so good.
There are a few things that I'm unsure about, though.
The Spell Alter Spirit of Disease has the Runes of Darkness, Death, Disease and Spirit, Sneeze has only the Disease Rune. Is Disease a new Rune? What are its properties and powers? Should we be told or is it a Mallia Cult Secret?
It is interesting that Alter Spirit of Disease needs the Disease Rune but Carry (Disease) and Cause (Disease) don't.
Mallia gets Charms of Darkness, Death and Spirit, no Disease there either.
Various spells (Axis Mundi, Call Founder, Create (Practice Fetish), Create (Rune) Charm, Summon Ancestor, Summon (Otherworld Species)) have Runes "All". Does this mean that it can be cast using any Runecasting skill? So, if I have Summon Ancestor then I could use my Law Runecasting or my Death Runecasting skill. Is this meant to show that these are cult/sect dependant? So, a Summon Ancestor through Daka Fal isn't the same as one through Yelm, for instance?
Silence Sphere has the Runes of Earth and Motion, whereas I'd have thought that Stasis would have been better as the sounds do not pass through the barrier.
The Create Basilisk spell has been made a lot easier as it needs an egg laid by some kind of fowl, rather than the Cock's Egg from the past.
The Intellect Spirit talks about free INT, opening up the sorcerer's free INT. Free INT? I thought we had dropped that in RQM. Sure, it can store spells, allowing a sorcerer to know more spells than his INT, which is fine. I think this slipped by the Proofreading stage.
Poor old Intellect Spirits, not only do they have an archaic and obselete power, but they can't see in the dark. Other spirits have Dark Sight and Night Sight, but not Intellect Spirits.
I like the Spirits of Thed - a very nice idea.
The Thanatar writeup speaks of Tien as the original god, then Atyar as being the Skull and Thanatar as being the headless corpse, with the reunited cult being Thanatar. Than is the headless corpse and Thanatar the reunited cult.
Create Head doesn't say what happens if you cast a Divine Spell known by a head. Do you lose the spell? Can you get it back? Because of the omission, it looks as though Divine Spells are one-use, which is a shame because RQ3 Thanatar made them reusable and made Thanatari scary as hell.
Chaos Defender can be resisted! Boo! That stops you casting it on your companion, making him stand to face the chaos while you run away to report it to your superiors. But it is Progressive with each extra point allowing an extra person to be affected. Hooray! That means that I can cast it on all the other members of the party, hoping some of it will stick while I make a strategic exit.
These are not whinging criticisms, they are part of an ongoing attempt by all here to make sure the Mongoose books are error free and the best they can be.
Anyway, that's all for now, I need to read it properly over the weekend.
The shamanism rules are very good. Hsunchens have a way of Integrating Spirits that should be available to a lot more people as it is so good.
There are a few things that I'm unsure about, though.
The Spell Alter Spirit of Disease has the Runes of Darkness, Death, Disease and Spirit, Sneeze has only the Disease Rune. Is Disease a new Rune? What are its properties and powers? Should we be told or is it a Mallia Cult Secret?
It is interesting that Alter Spirit of Disease needs the Disease Rune but Carry (Disease) and Cause (Disease) don't.
Mallia gets Charms of Darkness, Death and Spirit, no Disease there either.
Various spells (Axis Mundi, Call Founder, Create (Practice Fetish), Create (Rune) Charm, Summon Ancestor, Summon (Otherworld Species)) have Runes "All". Does this mean that it can be cast using any Runecasting skill? So, if I have Summon Ancestor then I could use my Law Runecasting or my Death Runecasting skill. Is this meant to show that these are cult/sect dependant? So, a Summon Ancestor through Daka Fal isn't the same as one through Yelm, for instance?
Silence Sphere has the Runes of Earth and Motion, whereas I'd have thought that Stasis would have been better as the sounds do not pass through the barrier.
The Create Basilisk spell has been made a lot easier as it needs an egg laid by some kind of fowl, rather than the Cock's Egg from the past.
The Intellect Spirit talks about free INT, opening up the sorcerer's free INT. Free INT? I thought we had dropped that in RQM. Sure, it can store spells, allowing a sorcerer to know more spells than his INT, which is fine. I think this slipped by the Proofreading stage.
Poor old Intellect Spirits, not only do they have an archaic and obselete power, but they can't see in the dark. Other spirits have Dark Sight and Night Sight, but not Intellect Spirits.
I like the Spirits of Thed - a very nice idea.
The Thanatar writeup speaks of Tien as the original god, then Atyar as being the Skull and Thanatar as being the headless corpse, with the reunited cult being Thanatar. Than is the headless corpse and Thanatar the reunited cult.
Create Head doesn't say what happens if you cast a Divine Spell known by a head. Do you lose the spell? Can you get it back? Because of the omission, it looks as though Divine Spells are one-use, which is a shame because RQ3 Thanatar made them reusable and made Thanatari scary as hell.
Chaos Defender can be resisted! Boo! That stops you casting it on your companion, making him stand to face the chaos while you run away to report it to your superiors. But it is Progressive with each extra point allowing an extra person to be affected. Hooray! That means that I can cast it on all the other members of the party, hoping some of it will stick while I make a strategic exit.
These are not whinging criticisms, they are part of an ongoing attempt by all here to make sure the Mongoose books are error free and the best they can be.
Anyway, that's all for now, I need to read it properly over the weekend.
