[Glorantha] The Uz

[Anders]

Glorantha is one of the truly ancient RPG worlds - in fact, the original inspiration was received in 1966, well before RPGs existed. It has always fascinated me, even though I have never played in it. And it seems like a good place to have a DF campaign - although it could easily be played as a more traditional fantasy campaign as well.

The houserules I would use for such a campaign can be found at Pee Kitty's homepage.
More information on Glorantha can be found here, and the wiki can be found here.

Everyone is invited to participate of course - that's one of the main reasons to post at a public forum - but be careful not to post any copyrighted material. I will post my interpretations of th source material, YMMV.


Now, my favorite race was always the trolls (Uz). They are smart, they are deadly, and they can literally chew through rock. Information about this can be found here. And the trolls' troll is a the Uzuz, or the Mistress Trolls. They are no longer born, but since they live forever there are still a few around. Very few. The recent appearance of two Uzuz at Dragon Pass was universally regarded as a major event.

Mistress trolls are tough, intelligent, and potentially magically powerful. They are blind, but their sonar allows them to find their way in the caves.

Attributes: ST +6 (Size Modifier -10%) [54]; IQ +1 [20]; HT +2 [20]
Secondary Characteristics: Basic Speed +0.50 [10]; Will +2 [10]; Perception +2 [10]; Size Modifier +1 [0]
Racial Advantages: Biting Strength 4 (Size Modifier -10%) [4]; Damage Resistance 2 [10]; Darksense [25]; Discriminatory Hearing [15]; Doesn't Eat (needs to eat something -10%) [9]; Magery 0 [5]; Medium [10]; Perk: Can distinguish between light and darkness [1]; Rapid Healing [5]; Resistant (Chaos; +3) [5]; Social Regard (Feared) 2 [10]; Teeth, Sharp (AD (3) +100%) [2]; Unaging [5]. Extremely ancient specimens have Injury Tolerance (Unbreakable Bones) [10]
Racial Disadvantages: Bad Temper (15) [-5]; Blindness [-50]; Guilt Complex [-5]; Intolerance (non-Uz) [-10]; Overconfidence (12) [-5]; Sense of Duty (Uz races) [-15]; Vulnerability (Iron, rare, x3) [-15]
Price: 125 points

Biting Strength and Sharp Teeth (Armor Divisor 3) are for chewing through rock, although they're an excellent weapon in close quarters as well. Magery 0 lets them learn RPM; Medium allows them to learn Shamanic magic (a list of spells); extremely ancient uzuz have bones of stone - that's the Injury Tolerance (Unbreakable Bones).

A problem - I have used Scanning Sense (Sonar) to mimic the primary Uzuz sense, Darksense. But how much should Darksense as given by that link cost?

Edit: edited to add Darksense and Vulnerability to Iron.

[Heart Song]

Ahh Glorantha!

Wodnerful world full of awesomeness.

I think Darksense as listed there is perhaps worth 20 points (that's minimum, perhaps conservative estimate) since its Racial ability since they live underground.

[Purple Haze]

My reference is Trollpak which I have in both its RQ2 and RQ3 editions.

Living Uz do not actually eat rocks, that is human misunderstanding, they have gizzards similar to birds and swallow stones to help grind their food. They may select stones for their mineral content.

Universal Digestion maybe a better fit. Though there are things that are toxic to trolls, just that none of the ones toxic to humans are.

No Uz in any version of RuneQuest or Hero Wars has a bite attack of any kind.

I create an attribute called WL that combines Will and Power Investiture (Spirit) and serves as a base for ER. After all, POW is the most important stat in RQ it needs to be modeled.

[whswhs]

All of those specifications work pretty well as standard sonar, using bat or dolphin frequencies in the hundreds of kHz, as in the Basic Set writeup. You may not be able to get precisely the same list, but the overall capabilities will match well. You might want to buy a level or two of Parabolic Hearing and link it to Sonar; each level would double the effective range.

Bats apparently have a fairly narrow angle of perception, about like Tunnel Vision. Going by the correspondence that 240° costs +75% and 360° costs +125%, and that Peripheral Vision costs 15 points and 360° Vision costs 25 points, I'd say that the -15 points to go from Restricted Vision to Tunnel Vision equates to -75%. I don't know if you want to go that way.

A frequency range in the hundreds of kHz is going to get you a maximum resolution on the order of 1 mm, about like Imaging Radar, and not as good as T-Ray Vision or human eyesight. It'll be comparable to the resolution of cat vision, maybe.

Bill Stoddard

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Purple Haze

My reference is Trollpak which I have in both its RQ2 and RQ3 editions.

Living Uz do not actually eat rocks, that is human misunderstanding, they have gizzards similar to birds and swallow stones to help grind their food. They may select stones for their mineral content.

Here the new Guide to Glorantha seems to disagree, at least with Uzuz. They are specifically listed as being able to derive nutrition from inorganic sutff. Black trolls, etc., will have Universal Digestion instead.

Originally Posted by Purple Haze

No Uz in any version of RuneQuest or Hero Wars has a bite attack of any kind.

That's just an extrapolation of them being able to chew rocks. I admit that there's nothing in the Guide about it, but it just seems a natural fit.

Originally Posted by Purple Haze

I create an attribute called WL that combines Will and Power Investiture (Spirit) and serves as a base for ER. After all, POW is the most important stat in RQ it needs to be modeled.

I'll probably model it in as many different advantages. Will obviously, but also Magical Aptitude, Divine Favor, Shamanic Investment and advantages like Blessed, Medium and True Faith. IMO, POWer does so many things it's better to split it up.

[Purple Haze]

Originally Posted by Anders

I'll probably model it in as many different advantages. Will obviously, but also Magical Aptitude, Divine Favor, Shamanic Investment and advantages like Blessed, Medium and True Faith. IMO, POWer does so many things it's better to split it up.

Characters with high POW do all those things and do all of them well. Splitting them up is not the way Glorantha works, one can not be good at some and bad at others. The fundamental concept is that if you have high POW reality in your vicinity works the way you wish it to.

[Anders]

Then I'll model it with Destiny Points, from Power-Ups 5, allowing players with lots of DP to buy successes or minor changes in the environment.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Anders

A problem - I have used Scanning Sense (Sonar) to mimic the primary Uzuz sense, Darksense. But how much should Darksense as given by that link cost?

The thread Gloranthan Troll Template from several years ago might be of some help, although it was mostly about dark trolls.

Regarding darksense, I came to the conclusion that the best model was to just flip Sonar's underwater and air numbers for some premium (since air is the default living environment, it should cost more to get the better range in it). That should be a fairly good fit for Uzko darksense. That of Mistress Race trolls should be superior, of course.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

Regarding darksense, I came to the conclusion that the best model was to just flip Sonar's underwater and air numbers for some premium (since air is the default living environment, it should cost more to get the better range in it). That should be a fairly good fit for Uzko darksense. That of Mistress Race trolls should be superior, of course.

There's no reason to pick an arbitrary value. Just take Sonar (Accessibility, Air Only, -10%; Increased Range, 100x, +60%) and the cost is 30 points, exactly.

Though from following the rule in GURPS Underground Adventures that if you're in a tunnel or cave rather than an open space, your range modifier is half what it would otherwise be, you might get by with Increased Range, 10x, +30%; you'd only be at a penalty of -3 at a mile range.

Bill Stoddard

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by whswhs

There's no reason to pick an arbitrary value. Just take Sonar (Accessibility, Air Only, -10%; Increased Range, 100x, +60%) and the cost is 30 points, exactly.

My limited experience is that a fractional premium related to the range in air (I've toyed with halving the Extended Range needed for the base, which would be +30% in this case) gives fairer numbers. Imaging Radar with +30% ER would give essentially the same utility as your build. Flipping the ranges seems like a good simple fix, since trolls apparently can use it in the water at greatly reduced effectiveness. Sea trolls probably have vanilla Sonar, maybe with some level of ER.

Darksense actually has some qualities of Imaging Radar AND Sonar. If you wanted to be exacting, you could build it as a new Scanning Sense, using the flipped ranges, the penetration of IR, and the susceptibility to auditory "jamming".