As pointed out by Skull Dixon, in the SoloQuest there are some mobile shrines – there are places set up to worship before the big battle. There’s a Vingan shrine, and a Humakti one, and there are also people worshipping their Ancestors in the river. These are not permanent resources, and in the case of the Ancestor worship may not be a resource at all.
The SoloQuest is designed to show people what the world is like, but in a way which rewards them for different curiosities each time. Every branch of the possible worship has some reward to it – two of them mechanical and one purely social. The worship is a key part of Glorantha, with relationships to the gods being important to most of the people you’ll meet.
But what are these shrines. If you want to have rules for them, how do we think they’ll work?
Well, first of all, remember that your Glorantha varies. Adding the shrines as a fixture will make it more alive and vibrant, more full of detail. How to do it does depend a bit on how crunchy you like your ruleset. ‘It just works’ is one of my favourite reasons, but despite that, I do actually like to back things up with precedent.
We have some precedent already. You can set up a permanent shrine in a holy place, and tend it, and it’ll replenish Rune points. This is something similar, but in my mind it brings the holy place with it. It’s made of relics of the cult, and blessed by the Rune Priests. It’s got the power to be a shrine just about anywhere. If you put a holy thing like the Sword Altar into the Paps, then it’ll still work. It’ll cause one hell of a lot of fuss, though.
Mechanically, they are places that would give a +10 to worship, I think – that’s about what a low-level shrine would be. It might also allow you a bonus to inspire Runes or Passions that apply to that deity or temple. However, there’s another option that appeared in our game before the Heroquest ever came out.
Our White Lady has a shrine which is a small portable altar and extended kit-bag, so she can help people in the field, and as part of the altar there’s a matrix for the Sanctify spell, meaning she can make a hospital wherever she goes. It’s recharged as part of worship, so it’s free at the point of casting, and as a healer she travels around, creating a tiny hospital – no bigger than a tent – and treating people. That’s also a really cool shrine, and a totally different mechanic, in that it concentrates on Rune magic, and on the creation of the shrine itself, not on creating a shrine for the effect it has.
3 Comments
Add Yours →I never thought of this, but the idea that mobile Shrines have a matrix for Sanctify is a great idea and probably true for most of them.
I imagine when creating a Mobile Shrine that you’ll need to put a few rune points into it.. My Best Guess would be 3 RP. One for the spell, One for the Rechargeability, and One for the Matrix. Course this would be Burning RP and not spending.
There is also the Godbundle in the Glorantha Treasures vol 1 JC book that could be an option for how to do this as well.
That’s at https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/317421/Treasures-of-Glorantha-V1–Dragon-Pass?affiliate_id=205935 for people who want to check it out.
Places sanctified for pre-battle sacrifices need not be shrines. Holy or sanctified objects can be placed in such places – such as standarts of units or mobile imagery of the deities (imagery used in processions etc.).
I wonder whether a mobile shrine or temple (as in “Temple of the Wooden Sword”) can reliably be maintained throughout the year. I would demand that the ground it rests on has to be sanctified most of the time, or at least on goddays and cult holy days. (If it has to be moved on such days, both the departure ground and the target ground need to be sanctified.)
A shrine needs a constant support from worshippers or (failing that) a commensurate amount of votive gifts providing sacrifice in absentia. A mobile shrine might require a small mule train or a wagon full of that stuff to be carried along.