Generic Fantasy Cults

[Radioactive Ape Colin]

So, in THIS thread, folks were asking for a generic fantasy setting for MRQ2, basically something more vanilla and along D&D lines than is currently available.

So, I thought, why not start putting together some generic D&D-style fantasy resources with folks, as a project on the forums? After it's done, I'll happily tidy everything up, format it, and pdf it for anyone to download and use.

To get the ball rolling, we'll start with a bunch of stereotypical cults. You know the drill, a Deity of the Sea, a Deity of the Sun, a Deity of War, blah, blah, blah. To keep things generic, no names or symbols will be included or described. Everything will be very vanilla with the GM providing flavour to the cult via adding an appropriate name, symbol, describing cult rites and dress, etc. as suits their own campaign.

Plucking the first random one from the list, we'll try a Deity of the Sea. I'll start with some elements, then folks can suggest/add more until it's done.

Deity of the Sea
[Deity of the Sea] is mercurial, given to bouts of calm and tempestuous rage. Ever moving even when seemingly tranquil, [Deity of the Sea] provides abundance with one hand, the bounties of the sea in the form of food, materials, and the wavering road. With the other hand they destroy, snatching life away to the darkening depths with roaring waves and perilous currents.

The cult recognises the dual nature of their patron deity, but seeks to promote his/her more benevolent side as suits the cult and its popularity and support. Sailors pray to the deity for fair seas, fishermen for nets and lines filled to near bursting, all to appease [Deity of the Sea] when he/she is given to wrath.

Rituals and worship are primarily conducted on the seashore, and initiates and baptised within the waves.

Runes
Cold, Motion, Water

Magic
Common Magic: Chill, Detect Fish, Water Breath

Divine Magic: Beast Form (Dolphin), Blessing (any cult skill), Breathe Water, Ebb and Flow, Elemental Summoning (Undine), Fog

Cult Skills
The cult offers training in the following skills. Pact is required as one of the five skills for joining and advancing within the cult: Boating, Pact, Persistence, Resilience, Shiphandling, Swim, any Spear or Trident style

Got to run, so anyone fancy tackling the Myths, and Membership sections?

 

[Deleriad]

Interesting idea. We could call it Runeworld. Don't have anything else to add right now but to start with I wouldn't worry too much about myths and so on, I would stick the real bare bones skills, magic and runic affiliations elements.

Colour me interested.

 

[cerebro]

Me too. But make a list of the gods. No myths is fine by me. I hate glorantha.

 

[Loz]

I find it incredibly ironic.

When Mongoose first gained the RQ license, the fear was that it would be made 'too D&D', because that had been Mongoose's background. Indeed, RQ1 was criticised for being too D&D with legendary abilities, hero points and physical runes.

And now, after all that was stripped out and revised wholesale for RQII, there's a call to make it a bit more D&D...

I'm not criticising the interest in doing this BTW: RQ's your game and you should make it what you want it to be: its very flexible in that regard. Hate Glorantha? Fine, but how about Deus Vult or Elric? Hate cults and myths? Then, how about 'Classic Fantasy' which Chaosium is publishing (and whilst designed for BRP will be an easy fit with RQ)? Or, take just about any favourite fantasy setting and graft your rules onto it: RQ should be able to handle it with aplomb. Want Conan? Well, there's a ton of stuff Mongoose has published for Conan that could be converted. Or how about 'Savage North' from d101 - Conan-sans-serial numbers (and designed for OpenQuest, which is a very close relative of RQ1 and RQII).

But the irony of this discussion...

 

[Exubae]

Lankhmar is also a cool setting worth looking at, though the cults take a bit more of a back seat.

Your description of the Sea cult sounds pretty much like the cult descriptions from the old Chaosium/Avalon hill RQ3 rules - it did a similar thing for alll the basic god types.

Its a nice idea if your building up a skeleton pantheon for a home brew world, creating a load of cult stubs, but it is really the interlocking Myth that makes the world come alive - its difficult to get the balance of consistency/balance and make it interesting... Glorantha from my perspective gets that balance right -especially with advent of MRQ2, the rework Loz & co did on the cults (even with the few error that snuck in) works well. Trying to get that kind of detail and balance off your own back can be a real ball-ache... And you haven't got a 30+ yrs wealth of info to draw on.

You might want to check out http://basicroleplaying.com/
there are quite afew suppliments for BRP, which is kind of RQ's maiden aunt.

 

[languagegeek]

But the irony of this discussion...

It might be culture shock coming from the ruins of D&D switching to 4e. Players disenchanted with the new version (and bored with d20) are out looking for a new game and some (myself included) have come knocking on RQ’s door. Perhaps others who are coming over from D&D might have a similar opinion to mine below.

[Ramble]

Glorantha: Since I started with MRQII, I don’t have any pre-existing loyalty to Glorantha or any other world from earlier versions. What I saw at first glance was both tacky and foreign. Tacky in the sense that, yeah, the much maligned and loved ducks are tacky, the elves made out of trees and dwarves made out of rock seem tacky too (that’s not quite right but first impressions here...). For someone looking for a gritty new game full of deep mythology and coolness, I take one look at the Races of Glorantha cover and move on to something else. Foreign in the sense that there’s not a lot of room left in Glorantha for me, everything seems filled up with other people’s campaigns and adventures; I’m walking into someone else’s old boy’s club.

These were my first impressions which you may have read elsewhere on this board. So I went on to build my own world - which is what I was going to do anyway. I bought the Glorantha Core Book to help me with ideas, but didn’t get much from it that I could port over to my world. Fair enough. Then I needed cults, and there’s not enough in the RQ core book to start making cults IMO. So, on the advice of this forum, I went out and got Cults of Glorantha (arrived last week). To put it mildly, I’m staggered by the depth and thought put into Glorantha’s cults, I’m even getting into God-Learners’ stuff which I thought was too Glorantha-specific for me to bother with. Hmmmm. I’m still not going to use Glorantha (for now), but the material in CoG is such that it will take minimal effort to bring ideas into my world. Maybe Glorantha ain’t so bad after all.

Perhaps herein lies the problem. First and second impressions of the Glorantha world don’t draw me (and apparently others) in. As the months have gone by, I realize that vanilla fantasy worlds (like Paizo’s Golarion or D&D Faerûn) actually hold little interest for me, not nearly enough anthropology and mythology there for my tastes. Yet I’ve stuck with it, bought some of the supplements for Glorantha, and have finally discovered that I can borrow and steal from it liberally to give real depth to my campaign. I wonder how many others will stick it out far enough, but they’d be glad they did.

Art and Presentation. Gamers I know want cool stuff for their $40. The leather covers of the corebooks certainy qualify as cool: check. They’re books I’m proud to have (closed) on my table. But... in my opinion, too much of the art leans to the tacky/embarrassing side, examples: quality NecroArts pgs 6 and 14 are pretty poor, that Divine Magic pic in the corebook with the shrivelled old priest and the two babes is just tacky. I could go on. Thing is, the art isn’t that elegant, and certainly isn’t up to the quality of the text. Just ’cause it looks old school, it doesn’t mean old school was remotely good design. And the maps are pretty poor (where they exist at all), especially compared the kind of maps one gets from other companies. Yeah, now that I’m playing the game, the art is irrelevant, but when I’m paging through books looking for something new at the FLGS, good presentation is a huge plus.

So, at the end of all this, I am really concerned about the news that RQII not performing as well as expected because I’m pretty heavily invested in it now, as will be my gaming group. I do think everyone should give the game system a try because it really is great. So I ask, what’s keeping them away?

Difficult-to-approach settings? Glorantha for reasons above, Elric: I never read the books, Deus Vult: I’ve no interest in Catholicism, Clockwork & Chivalry: we’re not English and don’t know the enough about the time period. So, not much there. If I approach Paizo’s Golarion, the world is so generic that I can easily plop in my adventure somewhere, great. But again, after some thought I say: so what, I don’t need Golarion if it’s going to be that generic, so why buy it?

What’s keeping them away? Design quality? Maybe, well probably, yeah.

There is an exodus of D&D players looking for something new, how can they be brought to RQII? Honestly, pretty books and generic adventures might do it. Why not reach out to people that way. D&D players are looking for something familiar to grab hold of: challenge ratings, myriad modules, real-world-analogue fantasy worlds, etc. Help us out with how to understand scales of power, some quick ’n’ easy scenarios.

I write this because I love the game, I want it to sell like crazy, and I want the Mongoose to keep on putting out more and more RQII materials and take lots of money from my wallet. I want the writers’ fantastic work to be reflected in the design, editing, and art of the books.

[/ramble]

 

[cerebro]

But the irony of this discussion...

It might be culture shock coming from the ruins of D&D switching to 4e. Players disenchanted with the new version (and bored with d20) are out looking for a new game and some (myself included) have come knocking on RQ’s door. Perhaps others who are coming over from D&D might have a similar opinion to mine below.

[Ramble]

Glorantha: Since I started with MRQII, I don’t have any pre-existing loyalty to Glorantha or any other world from earlier versions. What I saw at first glance was both tacky and foreign. Tacky in the sense that, yeah, the much maligned and loved ducks are tacky, the elves made out of trees and dwarves made out of rock seem tacky too (that’s not quite right but first impressions here...). For someone looking for a gritty new game full of deep mythology and coolness, I take one look at the Races of Glorantha cover and move on to something else. Foreign in the sense that there’s not a lot of room left in Glorantha for me, everything seems filled up with other people’s campaigns and adventures; I’m walking into someone else’s old boy’s club.

These were my first impressions which you may have read elsewhere on this board. So I went on to build my own world - which is what I was going to do anyway. I bought the Glorantha Core Book to help me with ideas, but didn’t get much from it that I could port over to my world. Fair enough. Then I needed cults, and there’s not enough in the RQ core book to start making cults IMO. So, on the advice of this forum, I went out and got Cults of Glorantha (arrived last week). To put it mildly, I’m staggered by the depth and thought put into Glorantha’s cults, I’m even getting into God-Learners’ stuff which I thought was too Glorantha-specific for me to bother with. Hmmmm. I’m still not going to use Glorantha (for now), but the material in CoG is such that it will take minimal effort to bring ideas into my world. Maybe Glorantha ain’t so bad after all.

Perhaps herein lies the problem. First and second impressions of the Glorantha world don’t draw me (and apparently others) in. As the months have gone by, I realize that vanilla fantasy worlds (like Paizo’s Golarion or D&D Faerûn) actually hold little interest for me, not nearly enough anthropology and mythology there for my tastes. Yet I’ve stuck with it, bought some of the supplements for Glorantha, and have finally discovered that I can borrow and steal from it liberally to give real depth to my campaign. I wonder how many others will stick it out far enough, but they’d be glad they did.

Art and Presentation. Gamers I know want cool stuff for their $40. The leather covers of the corebooks certainy qualify as cool: check. They’re books I’m proud to have (closed) on my table. But... in my opinion, too much of the art leans to the tacky/embarrassing side, examples: quality NecroArts pgs 6 and 14 are pretty poor, that Divine Magic pic in the corebook with the shrivelled old priest and the two babes is just tacky. I could go on. Thing is, the art isn’t that elegant, and certainly isn’t up to the quality of the text. Just ’cause it looks old school, it doesn’t mean old school was remotely good design. And the maps are pretty poor (where they exist at all), especially compared the kind of maps one gets from other companies. Yeah, now that I’m playing the game, the art is irrelevant, but when I’m paging through books looking for something new at the FLGS, good presentation is a huge plus.

So, at the end of all this, I am really concerned about the news that RQII not performing as well as expected because I’m pretty heavily invested in it now, as will be my gaming group. I do think everyone should give the game system a try because it really is great. So I ask, what’s keeping them away?

Difficult-to-approach settings? Glorantha for reasons above, Elric: I never read the books, Deus Vult: I’ve no interest in Catholicism, Clockwork & Chivalry: we’re not English and don’t know the enough about the time period. So, not much there. If I approach Paizo’s Golarion, the world is so generic that I can easily plop in my adventure somewhere, great. But again, after some thought I say: so what, I don’t need Golarion if it’s going to be that generic, so why buy it?

What’s keeping them away? Design quality? Maybe, well probably, yeah.

There is an exodus of D&D players looking for something new, how can they be brought to RQII? Honestly, pretty books and generic adventures might do it. Why not reach out to people that way. D&D players are looking for something familiar to grab hold of: challenge ratings, myriad modules, real-world-analogue fantasy worlds, etc. Help us out with how to understand scales of power, some quick ’n’ easy scenarios.

I write this because I love the game, I want it to sell like crazy, and I want the Mongoose to keep on putting out more and more RQII materials and take lots of money from my wallet. I want the writers’ fantastic work to be reflected in the design, editing, and art of the books.

[/ramble]

I'm in the same boat. I love your game, Loz. I think is a Jewel. The system is great. The Corebook is amazing in my opinion,except the art of course. I could do all the things you said. I don't want to. I rather pay. Why is that so bad?.

By the way I love the Conan line and I don't want it in RQ2.

 

[Loz]

Why is that so bad?.

Its not bad at all; I wasn't suggesting it is - just remarking on the irony of how RQ was originally criticised for going too much in a D&D direction, and then, when Pete and I delberately toned down or remove that perceived emphasis there's a vocal call for something more D&D in terms of a background setting. Its just the irony - there's actually nothing bad about it at all, and if people are coming to RQ because they're unsatisfied with 4ed mechanics (but love the worlds of D&D) then its a cause for celebration.

The alternatives I've suggested were just suggestions of published settings that may be attractive, but I understand that they may not be. Here's another (although it may be a bit too... off the wall for you?)... that you might want to check out.

http://www.gwenthia.org/

Anyhow, diversity is good and I'm really glad you like RQII.

 

[daxos232]

If your talking about designing generic cults, I had whipped up a quick system to do so. I think I named the thread "Cult Creation System" or something similar. It wasn't too long ago either so it may be on the 1st previous page. I should post it on the wiki sometime.

 

[Radioactive Ape Colin]

For my part, I'm doing this because nothing else out there has what I want in quite the way I want, and believe me, if it did I'd be using it. I own BRP, own Open Quest (and The Savage North), am not in to Moorcock, run Glorantha using HQ2, find Deus Vult uninteresting, don't plan on picking up Lankhmar until/if an updated version is ever released, own Clockwork & Chivalry and love it (and am writing articles for it too: check out the latest S&P!) but it's not generic fantasy, etc. I also haven't played any version of D&D since the early days of 3e (and I gave that up quickly), so I'm not some "convert" either. A bit about me, by the way:

1) I've been gaming for nearly 3 decades.
2) I lost count of the number of systems I'd read and played at over 100. And that was about 10 years ago.
3) I'm not only a gamer: I'm a veteran freelancer. Here's a listing of most (but not all) of the stuff I've had a hand in, small and large:

TALISLANTA
* A Players Guide to Talislanta
* A Gamemaster’s Guide to Talislanta
* The Menagerie
* Hotan's History of the World
* Northern Reaches, The
* The Darkness
* Chronicles of Talislanta: Revised
* Midnight Realm
* Talislanta Fantasy Roleplaying Game, 4e.
* Talislanta: Tenth Anniversary Edition

ORE
* Wild Talents
* Wild Talents Essential Edition
* Talent Operations Command Intelligence Bulletin 3 Marine Talent Operations in the Pacific Theater
* Will to Power

ALL FLESH MUST BE EATEN
* Book of Archetypes 2: Attack of the Archetypes
* Book of Archetypes, The
* Enter the Zombie
* Zombie Master Screen

IRON KINGDOMS
* Iron Kingdoms World Guide
* Iron Kingdoms Character Guide
* Lock & Load: Iron Kingdoms Character Primer
* Monsternomicon: Volume 1 - Denizens of the Iron Kingdoms

OMNI SYSTEM
* Atlantis: The Second Age
* High Medieval
* The Omni System
* Hellas: Worlds of Sun and Stone
* Hellas: Princes of the Universe
* Terran Trade Authority

A|STATE
* Lostfinders Guide to Mire End, The

CASTLES & CRUSADES
* Castles & Crusades Player's Handbook
* Castles & Crusades: Collectors Edition

WASTE WORLD
* A Fist Full of Credits: Waste World Starter Pak
* Hydra

UBIQUITY
* Secrets of the Surface World (Hollow Earth Expedition)
* Mysteries of the Hollow Earth (Hollow Earth Expedition)

CARTOON ACTION HOUR: SEASON 2
* Cartoon Action Hour: Season 2
* Giant Transforming Robots
* Going Japanese

FAERY'S TALE
* Faery's Tale Deluxe

MISCELLANEOUS
* Arms & Armor (d20 System)
* Barbarians of Lemuria
* Tribe 8 Companion
* Unhallowed Metropolis Companion
* Unhallowed Metropolis – Up The River

R.A.D.
* Atomic Highway
* Irradiated Freaks
* ION Guard – ICONS edition
* ION Guard – BASH! edition

A handful of games there (including those published by my own small press company, Radioactive Ape Designs) have been nominated for (and won in a few cases) Origins and ENnie awards too.

Interestingly, I am doing this for an existing pretty vanilla setting I enjoy and want to run using MRQ2. Certainly, I could do it purely for myself, but you know what? I recognized that the setting I'm going to be using it for is vanilla enough that if I do it with the names and some details removed, it becomes useful to a lot of MRQ2 fans with little extra effort on my part.

I enjoy creating material, figured other folks would enjoy lending a hand to this forum project, and ultimately, it's about freely producing something that some people want and can use. My world is built, but if I can have some fun creating material along with the folks on this forum who are interested in it, and end up creating a useful resource for folks in the process, then I consider that a very good thing.

Colin

 

[Radioactive Ape Colin]

Or, take just about any favourite fantasy setting and graft your rules onto it:

That's basically what I'm doing Loz, hence it being a set of resources I'm producing, not a setting. A set of free resources folks can use with minimal tweaking or effort for just about any vanilla fantasy setting in the D&D vein, be it Golarion, Faerun, Greyhawk, Freeport, or the multitudes of homebrews folks use.

Colin

 

[Radioactive Ape Colin]

Interesting idea. We could call it Runeworld. Don't have anything else to add right now but to start with I wouldn't worry too much about myths and so on, I would stick the real bare bones skills, magic and runic affiliations elements.

Me too. But make a list of the gods. No myths is fine by me. I hate glorantha.

Okay, no myths it is then. For the Membership section of each cult, we'll simply assume the basic Cult Ranks rules (MRQ2, pg. 148) apply. That simplifies things nicely and will speed things along.

Colin

 

[Jujitsudave]

I believe that MRQ2 could be rather sucessful if they steal the licence for Dragon Age from Green Ronin. MRQ in used for the Dragon Age setting would attract players, especially if it was sold where the game is sold in stores.

 

[Radioactive Ape Colin]

I know I may be asking a lot from folks, but is it at all possible to leave the posts about what you think would sell, what generic settings you'd like, recommendations that we buy/check out X, Y, or Z settings/books, debate over what is "generic", etc. for different threads, please? This thread was made specifically for the creation of generic cult entries. If I'm going to be doing this, and spending my time and energy eventually collecting it all, editing it and laying it out, pdfing it, etc. I'd rather not have to spend extra time sifting through tangential cruft.

Colin

 

[sdavies2720]

I'd vote for putting a myth or two in each cult. I may get out-voted on this, and they can take more time, but I find they do a couple of things:
* Give some life to the cult (even generic ones)
* Support one of the things that is unique about MRQII: Entering / reliving the myth
* Provide useful differentiation and characterization for players. Without classes, this is needed.

Steve

 

[Radioactive Ape Colin]

I'd vote for putting a myth or two in each cult. I may get out-voted on this, and they can take more time, but I find they do a couple of things:
* Give some life to the cult (even generic ones)
* Support one of the things that is unique about MRQII: Entering / reliving the myth
* Provide useful differentiation and characterization for players. Without RQ, this is needed.

Steve

I can always include the Myths as optional sections within each entry; that way everyone is happy and can use or ignore them as they see fit. So, if someone has a couple of myths they'd like to add to the Deity of the Sea, please, go for it.

Later today I'll post another entry or two.

Colin

 

[PhilHibbs]

I can always include the Myths as optional sections within each entry; that way everyone is happy and can use or ignore them as they see fit. So, if someone has a couple of myths they'd like to add to the Deity of the Sea, please, go for it.

I can see myths being a problem for generic cults, as it starts to pin the cult down to specifics. And if you keep the myth too general, it could become bland and pointless. Worth a try though.

 

[carandol]

Clockwork & Chivalry: we’re not English and don’t know the enough about the time period.

It's worth pointing out that you don't need to be an English historian to play Clockwork & Chivalry, any more than you need to be an Elven scholar to play D&D - we've tried to make the core rulebook as self-contained as possible, and our adventure campaign contains everything you need to run it right there in the books. While you *can* go to historical sources for extra inspiration, its possible to approach our magickal clockwork 17th century England as though it were a fantasy world like the Warhammer world, or Forgotten Realms, or Glorantha, or wherever.

 

[soltakss]

Me too. But make a list of the gods. No myths is fine by me. I hate glorantha.

Myths for religions are definitely not Glorantha-specific.

If you don't have myths then you don't have a religion, as far as I am concerned.

Imagine someone with no knowledge of real world religions playing in Medieval Europe. Unless you have some idea of the background to Christianity, Islam and Judaism then the cults are just a set of membership rules, skills and spells available. Perhaps that is all that is required, but to me it removes a lot of the depth and complexity of cults.

We can get away with this when writing for real world history because a lot of people know about real world religions or know some of the myths of Odin, Thor, Zeus, Poseidon, Seth and Horus, or could look them up over the Internet very quickly.

I suppose that for a very generic list (Sea God, Trade God, War God, Sky God) you don't need myths, but I would strongly advise anyone actually using them in a game setting to build up myths around the gods.

 

[soltakss]

So, in THIS thread, folks were asking for a generic fantasy setting for MRQ2, basically something more vanilla and along D&D lines than is currently available.

Have you read the generic cult description from Avalon Hill's RQ3 Rulebook? They've got the kind of thing you want, albeit in RQ3 format. It wouldn't take a lot of work to convert them to MRQII.