[Rq-rules] *** JUNK MAIL ***Re: Dorostar Conversion

[Simon Phipp]

John Pare:

> I want to make this supplement compatible with MRQ, even though the 
> timel;ines do match the setting, it was there.
>
> Any ideas how to do this?  A lot of the campaign area is ran by the Lunar 
> Empire, I was told the EWF is now in control of it.

You need to take into account several things:
1. Dorastor has only been awakened for a couple of generations in the Second Age setting
2. There is no Lunar Empire
3. Many of the nasty creatures from Dorastor (3rd Age) don't exist in the 2nd Age
4. Power levels are drastically different under RQM than RQ3
5. RQM doesn't have as full an idea of chaos, so things like Chaos Features are very under-described

> Any help please?

Right, here goes. After the Gbaji/Chaos Wars, Arkat completely destroyed Dorastor, salted it and smashed pretty much everything there, leaving it a desolate wilderness. He set guardians around so that Dorastor would not come back to life. Then it was left alone for a couple of centuries. But some things are too good to be left alone and Dorastor slowly woke up. The God Learners sent a couple of expeditions into Dorastor, the first was lost, the second may have been (I can't remember). The EWF sent an expedition flying over Dorastor and they reported forests and the sounds of gigantic things moving through the trees, then everyone on the expedition died within a few years coughing up blood. There were reports of a greasefire in Dorastor and the burning of forests.

The Godlearners supposedly woke Ralzakark on their first expedition and he now has some pet Godlearner sorcerers. Ralzakark then went around waking the rest of his buddies up. With that, the land woke up and tried to revert to normality, or passes for normality in Dorastor.

The EWF don't really want chaos bursting forth from Dorastor as it will impact on Dara Happa and Aggar. The Jrusteli don't want chaos bursting from Dorastor either as it might have an effect on Ralios. But, both know that there are many secrets in Dorastor, from the Feldichi to the Second Council and its remnants. So, I can see them mounting more expeditions there. So, there is a lot of scope in helping or opposing both Empires. There is also scope for the normal chaos-bash or treasure hunt scenarios.

There's a lot more on Second Age Dorastor on the Mongoose Forums at http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=26381 including who is there and which part of the Timeline is relevant.

RQ3 has a form of Super RuneQuest when describing Dorastor, something which I personally liked but a lot of people didn't. There are several problems converting this to RQM:
1. Dedicated POW means that the number and quantity of Divine Magic is severely restricted, so the chaos priests with nearly 100 points of divine magic need completely rewriting.
2. Many Chaos cults have not been described/written up for RQM. Since RQM uses Runemagic, Divinemagic, Dragonmagic, Sorcery and Spirit Magic for its cults, we need to know which type of magic is used by which cult. Bagog, for instance, uses Spirit Magic not Divine Magic, so Bagogi Priests don't need loads of points of Divine Magic, they just need to learn a few Spirit Magic spells.
3. Many of the creatures don't have RQM stats, so you have to use RQ3 equivalents and add special abilities
4. There is no Chaos Feature Table in RQM, so you may have to use the ones from RQ3. I would guess that Chaotics would be able to get some of their raw powers from new Legendary Abilities in addition to Chaos Features.

> It is too damned cool of a setting to let it RIP...

It's my favourite setting by far.

> kind of both, I want to convert to 2nd age Glorantha.  Creatures adn all.  I 
> know Doraostar is in the 2nd age, but I was told it was not quite what it 
> was as far as Chaos.  Some god had not been created yet by the god learners.

The Godlearners have awoken Ralzakark who they intended to control, but he ended up controlling them.

Andrew Larsen:
> Your informant was mistaken.  The confrontation that created Dorastor and
> which resulted in the destruction of either Nysalor or Arkat occurred at the
> end of the First Age.  Dorastor in the second age is described on p. 10-11
> of the Dorastor book.  That's all that you would really need.

Well, there's more to it than that. You have to take into account the surrounding cultures, the fact that creatures are being awakened, the power play between emerging factions, how that will affect the Poisonthorn Elves and so on.

Nothing is simple.

Hope that helps a bit.

See Ya

Simon
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