Playable races question

[Mage]

Hey guys. Not down here too often but am working on my runequest game. I need to get my hands on the companion and some other books, but would like to know what some of the playable races are. I know there is humans, elves, dwarves, and ducks, but what else is there? I mean, is there anything unique to runequest that I do not know about. I think the ducks are really cool, and I know dwarfs and ekves in this are different, but is there anything else?

Thanks in advance!

 

[soltakss]

I've got a soft spot for centaurs, having played one for a long time, but they're not so great climbing down caves.

Traditional Gloranthan RQ species include Baboons, Ducks, Trolls, Elves, Dwarves and occasionally Morokanth. Some people play Beastmen - Centaurs are good in a charge, Minotaurs are fun until they go doolally, Fauns and Satyrs are a bit weird and pervy, like good broos. Werebeasts are fun as well, I like Weretigers (Tiger Sons) but Telmori have been written up in more detail.

You can play Wind Children but they are rubbish underground, Tusk Riders but they are almost human and a bit nasty, Ogres, but they are chaotic and not to every campaign's taste.

I played a Grotaron (Maidstone Archer) once and he was fun, a windmill in combat and a heck of an archer, but I wouldn;t recommend them.

If you had an unusual campaign, you could play something chaotic or undead, vampires are always fun, mummies can be useful, zombies less so. Broos are too singleminded, scorpionmen are thick, ogres are handy until people find out what they are.

In a Second Age campaign, Dragonewts are playable as are Dragons, Wyrms and other draconic creatures. I wouldn't play a dinosaur, even an intelligent one, as most of them don't have hands and are a bit limited.

The beauty about RQ is that any creature can be a PC, there is no particular restriction on only playing certain species. Some are harder to play than others and some have more occupations and background written up.

 

[Mage]

Thanks dude. I don't know about Vampires and dragons, but then again ome new age of insane legends that characters play would be cool..... I just got a new campaign idea....

Any how, more questions!

What do the following look like: Baboons (Sounds silly I know, but ducks don't look like real ducks, there are more humanoid), Morokanth, Telmori Wind Children, and Grotaron?

 

[duncan_disorderly]

Thanks dude. I don't know about Vampires and dragons, but then again ome new age of insane legends that characters play would be cool..... I just got a new campaign idea....

Any how, more questions!

What do the following look like: Baboons (Sounds silly I know, but ducks don't look like real ducks, there are more humanoid), Morokanth, Telmori Wind Children, and Grotaron?

Baboons look like Baboons - They are ancestor worshippers and claim to be the last remnants of the monkey empire

Morokanth are (semi)-bipedal Tapir. They are one of the great tribes of prax and herd men (or, technically, they herd herd-men) and some of them are also slavers. They don't have thumbs (except for a few hero-questors who have quested for them), so find some manipulation tasks tricky (but can sometimes trian their herd-men to compensate). They have an affinity to the Darkness Rune.

Telmori are, effectively Werewolves, though not in a Horror movie sense. They are a Hsunchen tribe who see no difference between the two legged (Human) and four legged (Wolf) members. Every (human) adult member of the tribe has a companion wolf (and vice-versa). Human Telmori can learn magic that allows them to transform into wolves. One group of Telmori ("the Cursed ones") were cursed by Talor the laughing warrior during the Gbaji wars and must now take on Wolf form once a week (on Wildday). (In the third age, Sartar makes the Telmori one of the tribes of Sartar by promising to help them break this curse. In return the Telmori provide a bodyguard to the house of Sartar).

Wind children are winged humanoids. They are tied to the Storm rune. I don't recall their statistics, but I've always imagined them to be "child-sized"

Grotaron, or Maidstone Archers are one of Glorantha's more unusual species. Imagine a Human with no head, but a third arm growing out of their neck. They have mouths in their stomachs and eyes on their hands.
They use their three arms to fire powerful bows.

Tusk-Riders (that you didn't ask about) are large ugly humans, who ride larger, uglier boars. They are rumoured to be half-trolls and/or to mate with their pigs. They are bloodthirsty and aggressive, worshipping the Bloody Tusk and capturing the Spirits of their defeated enemies in fetishes made of their tails or hands.

The other possible Gloranthan Character species not mentioned is the newtling. Amphibious humanoids - the PC's would be the "batchelor" stage in which they leave their birth pool as effectively sexless individuals and travel far and wide before puberty strikes and they return to the birth pond to become breeding adults.

 

[Mage]

So are these in Runequest companion or the Monster book?

 

[soltakss]

Ok, what do they look like?

Baboons: Like normal baboons, but larger and more upright. They are intelligent and can speak. They use spears, rarely wear armour, have fur and brightly coloured backsides which they flash at every opportunity. In RQ2/3 they worshipped Grandfather Baboon, who is their ancestral god, Hunter and various unspecified spirit cults.

Morokanth: The classic explanation is that they are like large, intelligent tapirs. Have you seen the TV programme "ALF"? Way back in the eighties, he was an Alien Life Form who lived with an American family. Well, ALF, or Gordon Shumway, looks like a Morokanth, except that he is too small. Make him bigger than human sized, a bit darker, cut his thumbs off and you get a morokanth. They worship the Praxian deities and herd unintelligent Herd Men which they eat.

http://images.google.co.uk/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&q=morocanth


http://www.tvshows.de/alf/e-pictures.htm#classic

Telmori: These are werewolves, well they aren't really. They are human and look human, but they might have bushy hair, bushy eyebrows and be a bit snarly. They worship Telmor the wolf god and have magic that enables them to turn into wolves. Wolfbrothers are Werebeasts, humans that can turn into woves, who normally worship Telmor or are part of Telmori clans. They look like Telmori, but I always play that their eyebrows join in the middle, a dead giveaway, unless the shave the middle of the eyebrow off, sneaky buggers. They have to change into wolf form every full moon, which in Glorantha is once a week.

Wind Children: These are easy. They are winged humanoids, imagine the classic angel or the Hawkmen from Flash Gordon, but a bit wimpier. They live on high mountaintops, don't wear a lot of armour, use slings and rapiers, worship Storm Gods and can control Sylphs (Air Elementals) naturally.

Grotaron: Maidstone Archers and possibly the silliest Gloranthan species. No head, their mouth is in their chest, they have three arms and have an eye in the palm of each hand. They are giants and wield a gigantic bow which they hold in two arms and draw with the third, and use three mauls in combat, hence the windmill effect.

If you do a Google search for Grotaron you get a lot of pictures of Kalikos, the Finnish RQ Society, but they don't look THAT bad, really.

I can't find any online pictures of the others, unfortunately.

Mr Qwiki has the Monsters SRD in PDF Form and that should have some of these in. The link is http://mrqwiki.pbwiki.com/f/RQMonstersSRD.pdf

Hope that helps.

Have you got the Monsters book? It has loads of ideas in. If not, the SRD is pretty much just as good.

 

[Mage]

They all sound cool except the upside down tripod men.
I am definetly going to pick up the companion and monsters book. Lots of good ideas there to add to the game!

 

[soltakss]

So are these in Runequest companion or the Monster book?

To tell the truth, I took them from memory.

They are in the RQ3 Gloranthan Bestiary and RQM Monsters Book.

 

[soltakss]

They all sound cool except the upside down tripod men.
I am definetly going to pick up the companion and monsters book. Lots of good ideas there to add to the game!

Get the SRD first. If you like it and want the pictures, get the book. The SRD is pretty good on its own, though.

Of course, we should buy ALL Mongoose's RQ books .....

 

[TRose]

Another group that has not been listed are pygmies, of which there are several tribes of in Glorantha, including some who ride Giant Wasp and Bees. Although similiar to normal size Humans in most ways they are of course smaller. In The Book of Drastic Resolution Size is listed as 2d4+2 and Strength is 2d8 for males and 2d6 for females.

 

[Trifletraxor]

Jelmre!!!

SGL.

 

[ninthcouncil]

Trolls have been mentioned briefly; they bear no resemblance to the creatures of the same name in D&D. Superficially they are more like orcs - but trolls have a complex and ancient culture and are not cartoon cannon fodder. Humans have reasons to fear them - for a start, they'll probably eat you if they can get away with it - but they've also been reliable, heroic allies against Chaos. They're one of the most convincingly detailed "aliens" in fantasy games. I love 'em.

Oh, and did I mention that they'll eat you?

 

[Blackyinkin]

Hi All,

Baboons seem to have been drastically downgraded for MRQ. The published ones (in the SRD) seem to be the small, stupid and unmagical variety.

Here is my stab at the stats for the Giant Baboons of Prax

Baboon, Giant
Found throughout the Wastes of Genertela. They travel in troops of 15-20 and are lead by an Alpha Male, who mates with the fertile female. They worship their ancestors and make powerful shamans. They have a great fondness for horse flesh. In my game I would only allow them to choose from the Primitive background, limiting them to the Hunter, Shaman and Tracker occupations. However I would be inclined to allow anyone playing one to gain 1 Free intergrated Rune, to demonstrate their inherently magical nature. They are quite a fearsome foe.

STR 3d6+6 (16-17)
CON 3d6 (10-11)
SIZ 3d6 (10-11)
INT 3d6 (10-11)
POW 2d6+6 (13)
DEX 3d6+6 (16-17)
CHA 3d6 (10-11)

Hit Locations
D20 Hit Location AP/HP
1-3 Right Hind Leg 1/4
4-6 Left Hind Leg 1/4
7-9 Abdomen 1/5
10-12 Chest 1/6
13-15 Right Front Leg 1/3
16-18 Left Front Leg 1/3
19-20 Head 1/4

Weapon Skill Damage
Bite 40% 1D8+1D2
Spear 40% 1D8+1D2
Sling 50% 1D6+1D2

Combat Actions: 3
Strike Rank: +13
Movement: 4m

Skills: Athletics 80%, Dodge 35%, Perception 45%,
Resilience 40%, Stealth 55%, Survival 40%, Tracking
40%

Typical Armour: Hide (AP 1, no Skill Penalty), Alpha Males may possess more potent armour that they have salvaged.

 

[Blackyinkin]

Hi All,

Okay a lot of Playable non-humans and near humans have been forgotten on these lists...

Centaurs, Minotaurs, Satyrs, Fox Women and Keets are just some of the beast people you can encounter in the game. Only Fox Women (Elurae) have not been detailed to some degree in the book, Keets are like Ducks, but they come in different forms, so you get Puffin Keets, Heron Keets, Swan Keets, Pelican Keets. Fox Women are shape shifting creatures, who retain most of their fox like characteristics when they change form. In Glorantha many of these creatures are found in wilder parts, the Fox Women and Keets come from the Eastern Lands, and the Beast Folk are often the successful results of the experiments occuring at the legendary Stitched Zoo in Dragon Pass, being run by a gentleman called Delecti, if I remember correctly.

There are others...
The Waertagi are ocean going humans, descendants of St Waertag, they are surperb boatmen and are excellent swimmers. Their skin is tinged blue or green.

The Jelmre are bizarre Lemur like creatures, with huge eyes, probosis like mouths, long fingers and the bizarre ability to crystalise their emotions and use them as spells (making their own Runes?) not a race I like or have ever let my players encounter.

The Timinits are insect like creatures, you get huge lumbering Beetle like Lucans, spider like ones, damsel fly ones that lead hectic and doom ridden short lives.

The Merfolk, the main protagonists are the Ludoch (mammalian) and Piscoi (Fishlike) races of mermen, although there are more bizarre ones in Glorantha. I have run a very successful Merfolk campaign, and there are even places like Seapolis, some parts of Kralorela, the East Isles and Loskalm where merfolk and humans interact daily.

Newtlings, these small bipedal salamander like creatures are often encountered near to the alien lizardmen called Dragonewts. They are adventurous, light hearted and fun creatures to play, knowing little of the world they can make good starting characters.

In fact I have in my time played Gremlins (dwarf made of course), trollkin, broos (rapacious beast headed monsters), talking fish who travel around in water elementals, werecats (Puma People), Tusk Brothers (shape shifting were-boars), trolls, elves, Giants, centaurs and ducks of course.

Simon

 

[weasel_fierce]

There's the bugmen.. Timinits.. mentioned above briefly, which are quite cool. In Glorantha, they are all eager to prove how civilized they are, since its not very long since they ran around and ate each other. Quite charming.

 

[ninthcouncil]

There's the bugmen.. Timinits.. mentioned above briefly, which are quite cool. In Glorantha, they are all eager to prove how civilized they are, since its not very long since they ran around and ate each other. Quite charming.

I'm looking forward to using Timinits in the game; they get around a lot more in the Second Age than in the "classic" Third Age setting, being part of the Middle Sea Empire.

Click-click!