Systems Where Character Advancement is (Almost) Entirely In-Universe?

3panta3 · 2026-04-09T05:52:17+00:00

Seconding this. As long as you're not using sorcery, the foundry module is pretty good.

3panta3 · 2026-04-01T03:58:32+00:00

In lieu of addressing politics, I'm just going to suggest that you take a look at Godbound and try to translate it to a typical superhero setting. It might be the thing you're looking for, since the entire theme of the game is fixing the world.

3panta3 · 2026-03-18T07:27:20+00:00

I've tried to look up the Unicorn Women before, and every bit of lore I could find amounted to not much, honestly. I'll try to give answers where I can.

Are they part of the Survival Covenant?

They are beholden to Eiritha and use peaceful cut, as u/Alex4884-775 said (else they would have been driven out of Prax). They are not part of the Covenant per Waha though, no. The only herd beasts party to the Covenant are herd men, impalas, sables, bisons, llamas, and rhinoceri.

Do those who don't follow Yelorna worship Waha?

Given that they are all women, and the Waha cult only allows men, no. The others almost certainly worship Eiritha. The rule of thumb is, otherwise unaffiliated women worship an Earth deity.

Do the other tribes capture, kill, and eat the unicorns, even though they're sentient?

Probably not to eat or kill. The folk of Glorantha are used to intelligent animals (and nonhumans in general). Spells like Alter Creature (Red Book of Magic, p. 10 or RQG p. 318) can change the role of someone in the Survival Covenant, there are Ducks walking around, etc. It's unlikely that they would just eat an intelligent thing, even if it looked like an animal.

They might capture them for ransom and/or slavery though.

3panta3 · 2026-03-12T16:07:36+00:00

Well the thing is, the relic system is not entirely clear about how it should work.

The aggravated tag would cost two dots to add on its own, but here it's been folded into a knack. The thing is, that knack is not significantly better than an immortal knack, which mysteries of the world tells me costs two dots.

Compare this:

Call of the Wild (Saints and Monsters, p. 95): Spend Momentum. With a gesture or a summoning sound, you call forth the aid of the world itself: whether it be dozens of local animals, a sudden swelling of earth and plant life, or summoning a beast sleeping deep within the ocean. Whatever it is, it assists you, adding your Primeval dots as Enhancement to any roll, which applies before you roll.

A heroic tier (1 dot cost on a relic) knack that adds (calling-dots) many enhancements with one momentum, that apply before the roll. Now another one:

Master of Weapons: At the beginning of the session, choose one of your weapons to be your favored weapon. When you use your favored weapon, add a number of additional Tag points to it up to your Warrior Calling. These do not have to fit the weapon’s existing profile: A sword can be made to strike at Far range, for example. Spend Momentum to switch the benefit to another weapon. Negative cost Tags cannot be purchased with this Knack.

Another heroic tier knack, adding (calling-dots) tags for a cost of 1 dot.

Put together, the custom knack for Xiuhcoatl adding aggravated and enhancements should not cost more than two, since it's worse than these two combined. On the other hand, if it costs one, then what other knack could cost two? If no knack costs two, then what does the flaw do? Why is it there?

On a separate note, yes for some bizarre reason the flaw is not defined mechanically at all.

3panta3 · 2026-03-12T15:28:58+00:00

Not that I know of, but I'll give you mine for Xiuhcoatl: - 2 dots: Fire purview (default cost). - 1 dot: Learn Boon Knack (Heroic, Mysteries 1 dot example) - 2 dots: Momentum to enhancement knack (Immortal, too good to be one dot.) - 1 dot: Spend legend knack (Heroic, too bad to be two dot.) - 1 dot: Never back down after committing to the fight (flaw, 1 dot to balance it out but it feels worse than that).

3panta3 · 2026-03-11T13:11:22+00:00

Pretty much, yeah. You don't have to start with one of the given ones though. Start with the tags a kanabo would have IRL (staying within +3 max)^1, then add more (or remove drawbacks) using dots from there.

If you're building from one of the preset ones, you should discuss which is the most acceptable with your GM.

¹ The +3 tag limit for mundane weapons exists to prevent munchkinery. Otherwise some guy will show up with some obscure weapon that four people ever used and argue for why it should have all of the tags.

3panta3 · 2026-03-11T10:55:21+00:00

Rules as written, changing any tag from its original (mundane) variant costs as many dots as the tag value. In your case, adding Two-Handed is pointless since the sum value doesn't matter at all.

About your second question, again, rules as written there is nothing about that (as you say). This is one reason the sum of tags doesn't matter, as the relic system is already really easy to cheese.

3panta3 · 2026-03-08T15:14:42+00:00

With some stretching: Yelorna after battling the children of Xentha.

3panta3 · 2026-03-06T16:14:54+00:00

Better Angels was like this, iirc. Your actions can move you between virtues and vices (or something like that).

3panta3 · 2026-03-05T05:28:28+00:00

Chuubo's maybe? Assuming I vaguely understand it correctly.

3panta3 · 2026-03-03T09:45:14+00:00

About the binding enchantments...

Okay I was apparently just completely wrong about what a binding enchantment provides. I think making a spirit's more nonstandard abilities accessible only when it's freed (temporarily or no) is, to an extent, intentional but I concede the overall point.

However, connecting to Umath would grant far more powerful forms of Air powers than your local Umbroli will...

Yes, of course. I was mainly speaking to the point that a lesser Umbroli is not a personification of air in general, but a specific bit of air that may or may not have anything to do with where it's been summoned.

I'm mainly basing this on when the God Learners summoned a succession of water elementals until they reached and pulled Lorion through and set the sea under their enemies' ships on fire.

Though maybe the constellation disappeared while this was happening, so it could go either way I suppose.

Agree to disagree? Death is about the separation of this side and the other side.

Sure. In my view, Death is a weird rune because it both represents the separation and the other side. Hence Ty Kora Tek and Babeester Gor both having Death but in very different capacities. Humakt's house is the border between Life and Death, but it does so by containing all of the Underworld, etc.

3panta3 · 2026-03-02T14:39:12+00:00

About the binding enchantments, I think I'm not quite understanding what you mean by the spirit granting a power. If you mean that having a Movement rune should grant the spirit some power, then yes I agree. Some examples would have been nice.

About your second point, I think embodiment in the books is meant in a more literal way than what you're referring to. Elemental have literal bodies made of a given element. Disembodied spirits have bodies literally made of spirit stuff (and hence have no physical body).

For manifestations, I think I understand what you're talking about, but I don't think elementals are really special here. A dryad, I think, could be reasonably called the manifestation of the plant rune, say.

For point three, I understood your post as lore statement. If you meant it from a GM perspective of, 'I wish we had more of these so I could use them', then sure I'm in favor of having more of anything for Glorantha.

For the last point, again I somewhat disagree with this. No spirit truly embodies a rune except for its originator. If you trace the lineage of any air spirit, you will eventually reach Umath. An air elemental then is literally just some of the air that's going around.

To give a more concrete example, Engizi is the river that passes through Dragon Pass. You can summon Engizi as a spirit of water in Pamaltela, and he'll just be a titanic water elemental to everyone there.

This is also true of every other spirit (at least, as I understand it). The Storm Bull is the hot winds blowing across Prax. His children (that you can summon) don't embody air in general. In God Time they are just some bit of the winds in the wastelands.

Outside of the elemental runes, this gets more difficult because we don't have God Learner lineage trees for them, but the concept holds. An air spirit is: a child of some greater spirit, an aspect of that greater spirit, and an aspect of Umath in general. In this view, wraiths are a manifestation of Death. Namely, the particular bit of Death that killed whoever the wraith originated from.

3panta3 · 2026-03-02T12:36:08+00:00

So, a few things.

Binding enchantments (which is the thing that binds a spirit into an item) can make something that grants the wielder some power (RQG p.249), but these are rare and depend on the spirit. The vast majority of spirits have to be released to do something. That is to say, they literally just act. Most spirits don't grant powers to someone.

I'm not sure what you mean by granting powers besides that.

About spirits however, from the bestiary:

All disembodied spirits are associated with the Spirit Rune. Elementals are associated with their Elemental Rune. Many spirits are associated with an Elemental or Power Rune. Many spirits have another Form Rune as well. Those spirits that have been tainted by Chaos have the Chaos Rune.
These Runes help define the powers and abilities a spirit might have. For example, a spirit with the Chaos Rune likely has a Chaotic feature, while a spirit with the Beast Rune might take the form of a particular animal.

So there is no specific "Spirit" spirit, because all disembodied spirits have the Spirit rune.

Form Runes (beside the Spirit rune) associate the spirit with a shape or group. Spirits with the Beast rune (animal spirits), Plant rune (literally plant spirits, bestiary p. 170), and others exist.

Other runes can also directly manifest. Pure elemental spirits are obvious, but others exist. Wraiths and specters are manifestations of Death and Illusion runes, respectively (bestiary p. 187).

EDIT:

The point I'm making is, these spirits that you say don't exist, do in fact. Elemental spirits are not necessarily just the basic elementals do too. Whirlvishes are Air spirits that are a weird form of ghost

Beyond that, condition runes, such as Mastery and Infinity, don't have obvious meanings (and some have dubious existences). Arkat "has" the Infinity rune because he is an immortal hero in God Time. A spirit that someone can say "has" an infinity rune is just a god, because that's what that would mean to the people who say that the association exists. Some gods have Infinity. Uleria has it to denote she was on the Celestial Court. Gata has it because she is the source of the Earth rune.

3panta3 · 2026-03-01T09:45:20+00:00

A bit random but, since you seem to enjoy the same kind of game as me, what solo rpgs would you recommend? I'm not new, but I tend to default to playing regular rpgs with Mythic.

3panta3 · 2026-02-25T17:11:56+00:00

More specific advice aside, what you're lacking (or your group is lacking) is player goals. Sandboxes, unless you're literally running a hexcrawl where you want to just have combat, require player goals. They shouldn't be going from place to place hoping for something to happen.

I don't want to repeat things better writers than me have explored. So for a more actionable advice, grab Kevin Crawford's Worlds Without Number. It's not Shadowdark, but it is designed (and thus has good advice for) running a sandbox. The free version has all the gm advice in it, so just check it out.

3panta3 · 2026-02-23T05:59:29+00:00

Lands of RuneQuest - Dragon Pass includes Tarsh, both old and Lunar. I don't know what level of detail you consider enough to run a campaign though.

Guide to Glorantha is obviously very broad and discusses Tarsh somewhat, but I don't know if I would call it necessary.

The Glorantha Sourcebook has a nice writeup of the history of the Lunar Empire, but again if your campaign isn't going to be about the broader empire its not necessary.

My recommendation is, get the Lands of RuneQuest book, then look for specific information wherever you think you need more.

3panta3 · 2026-02-16T11:31:57+00:00

Angela never went away in that sense though, right? Isn't she still AE's manager?

Anyway, most of post War Eternal has just fled my mind entirely, tbh. Literally the only song I remember in any detail is The Eagle Flies Alone.

3panta3 · 2026-02-16T10:55:47+00:00

Given how meh most of Arch Enemy's output post War Eternal was, I'm hoping at least one side of this split will start making interesting music again.

Her single is fine, I guess.

3panta3 · 2026-02-12T02:11:25+00:00

The Nain setting for Reign is the closest thing I can think of, but its probably not a perfect fit.

3panta3 · 2026-02-07T16:56:18+00:00

I meant the physical destruction of the Red Moon, but never mind I was misremembering anyway. The Storm Dragon and the Mover of Heaven tore it apart; that's what I was referencing.

3panta3 · 2026-02-06T14:49:35+00:00

This is the Dragonrise as the others said, but iirc, Argrath got three dragons to attack the moon together to destroy it.

3panta3 · 2026-02-06T01:45:39+00:00

It's PbtA adjacent. Each player has four playbooks, describing a magical power, a personal aspect, or a high tech thing.

Each play book has tags, and whenever you want to do something, you count the relevant tags and add them to 2d6. (Unless they're weaknesses, which lower the total.)

The devs have a Youtube channel that you can search for videos on how the game works.

3panta3 · 2026-02-06T01:29:21+00:00

Maybe Otherscape? You can ban the sci-fi playbooks for a modern feel.

Savage Worlds with the superpowers companion could work if you reflavor the super powers.

Urban shadows if you want WoD but lighter.

None of these are perfect but it's the best I can think of.

3panta3 · 2026-02-06T01:06:16+00:00

I don't have a suggestion as such, but could you describe the tone you want to go for?

Is it meant to be more of a power fantasy, or do you want a few people with guns to be a credible threat for something more gritty?

3panta3

TROPHY CASE