Passions

Strong emotions—whether devotion, loyalty, love, hatred, or honor—elevate mere adventures into the stuff of legend. Glorantha’s myths and history are full of intense emotion, resulting in the heights of heroism and the depths of tragedy. Passionate people may perform with superhuman effort and a greater likelihood of success, and Passions provide a means by which this can be done.

Passions are rated just like skills or Runes, with a percentage value indicating how strong the Passion is. The higher the rating, the more intensely the Passion should define the adventurer and their actions.

Basic Passions

Basic Passion	Description
Devotion:	A personal and emotional dedication to a specific deity. One can be a good cult member and not be very devoted, but devotion gives an advantage.
Fear:	Dread of a certain individual, group, or race.
Hate:	Hatred of a clan, tribe, individual, city, nation, or a species.
Honor:	Adherence to a code of dignity, integrity, and pride. It encompasses correct behavior in warfare and combat, respect for one’s peers, and also demands respect from others.
Loyalty:	The cornerstone of society, including loyalty to one’s clan or tribe, or to an individual or temple.
Love:	An emotional bonding or attraction felt for another individual or for a small group, such as your immediate family.

These are the most common Passions adventurers possess:

Other Passions are possible (perhaps Distrust or Respect, for example), and any adventurer can automatically declare a new Passion during play, with a starting value of 60% (or higher, depending on the circumstances).

Using Passions

Passions define an adventurer’s beliefs, inspire them, and can be used to augment abilities. The gamemaster may call for a Passion roll, or the player may suggest one. Remember that the gamemaster has the final word when attempting to use a Passion for inspiration. Passion rolls can be extremely risky as well as rewarding; a fumbled Passion roll results in despair!

Inspiration

An adventurer may become inspired by a Passion to augment a skill, with the gamemaster’s approval. Only one attempt can be made in an instance—a combat, battle, meeting, ritual, etc. The inspiration lasts for the time it takes to complete the activity, such as the duration of the combat or battle, with a maximum of one day. The gamemaster determines the actual duration.

Once an attempt is made in the situation at hand, the adventurer cannot try to be inspired again, even by a different Rune or Passion. Bonuses from inspiration cannot be combined with an augment from another skill (see Augmenting Abilities).

When attempting to become inspired by a Passion, roll against the Passion’s rating on a D100:

Result	Inspriration Effect
Critical Success:	One ability of the player’s choice temporarily receives a +50% bonus.
Special Success:	One ability of the player’s choice temporarily receives a +30% bonus.
Failure:	Subtract –10% from all further rolls made for the duration of the situation that brought on the state.
Fumble:	Immediately reduce the Passion by –1D10% and fall into despair, incapable of doing anything more than running away or hiding. Despair lasts for a few minutes or a few days, determined by the gamemaster.

A Passion reduced to 0% is removed from the adventurer sheet. An opposing Passion may be appropriate at that point, such as Hate being created where Love once was.

Successful use of Passions in any of these situations is usually worth an experience check, unless the gamemaster says otherwise. See Improving Skills and Passions for more information about this.

Gaining a Passion

Passions may be gained during play. Plenty of opportunities are given to gain enemies, lovers, rivalries, and loyalties. When something significant occurs, the gamemaster or player may suggest that a Passion has been created. If both agree, the player and gamemaster then determine the starting value, usually 60%.