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To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest)
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Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Mon, 14 Jun 1993, part 2
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The RuneQuest Daily and RuneQuest Digest deal with the subjects of
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From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner)
Subject: Re: Sorcerers' cultures, archery
Message-ID: 
Date: 13 Jun 93 10:04:37 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1051

Well, sorcery at large.


__________________________
Simon Manning in X-RQ-ID: 1030

> (i)Different Sorcery Rules For The Different Heresies of The Malkioni.

> The Hrestoli came from the Brithini originally and all subsequent 
> heresies, except the Stygian, have split off from the Hrestoli. Since, 
> according to the prosopaedia in GoG, Zzabur is known as the First Wizard, 
> I have always taken these facts to mean that all Malkioni use the same 
> sorcery system, which means the same sorcery rules as far as the game 
> mechanics are concerned.

> (ii) However, (i) does not mean they all use the same spells, because we 
> know this not to be true and according to book 2 of Genertela, the 
> Brithini have spells that non-Brithini cannot use. This is one major 
> difference that does exist and needs to be explained.

The differences ought to cut a bit more than skin deep. Why not let them 
have different methods of manipulation? Or different attitudes towards 
familiars?

> (iii) We also know from Genertela that the Hrestoli, Rokari and presumably all
> the Hrestoli offshoots refer to sorcery in religious terms, as prayers or
> miracles, but do the Brithini? Also, for the Rokari and the Galvosti(?), which
> don't have caste advancement, how do the different castes approach magic? Here I 
> agree there would be noticeable caste differences.
> I imagine that for the Hrestoli and Borists(?) there must be some differences 
> here as well, but probably not so extreme.
> It would be nice if these points could be 
> included in a write-up of the Malkioni, as doing so would really help to put
> sorcery into a social context.

Galvosti and Boristi probably are as pious as the Stygians surrounding 
them.

> [Digression: Perhaps the Hrestoli etc. refer to sorcery as prayers because 
> sorcery involves the manipulation of natural processes that they believe to be
> part of the Invisible God (see GoG) and therefore leads to some contact with the 
> Divine? If so, how do the Brithini relate to spell use?]

Do I take it correctly that the only magic-users in Brithini society are 
the Zzabur-class? They'd refer to that as mathemagic equations, I'd think.

> I guess that to sum-up, what I have been trying to say is that I think that
> apart from some special Brithini magic, all the Malkioni use the same
> sorcery (rules), but that there will be differences in how their different 
> societies view it.

The Malkioni (i.e. Hrestoli, Rokari, Boristi, Galvosti, to a lesser extent 
also Carmanians and Stygians, maybe also the Sedalpists) should have more 
in common with each other than with other sorcerers, but that doesn't mean 
they are identical in their techniques.

> (iv) Re: David Scott's enquiries about the origin of humanity according to the 
> Brithini.  

> I wrote to Chaosium about this several years ago and Greg Stafford answered 
> (26/9/89) that the Malkioni believe that:

> "Men are the spawn of the rape of merwomen by kolati."
> Therefore Malkion is human - see WF 13.

I don't see that line of reasoning. Does this make all men Waertagi?

> According to GoG only the very earliest entities (including the dragons ?) new 
> the Creator personally.

Even if Greg said so, I find that hard to believe. Kolat is a mythical son 
of Umath, a member of the air/storm pantheon, and thus a theistic concept. 
Hardly the believed origin for a people that believes in only one divine 
being!
GoG tells us: "In earliest times, people lived close to the creator [...]"

> (vi) Discussion point. In the letter mentioned above I also asked about Yingar 
> the Messanger. Greg Stafford replied with

> "Yingar the Messanger is more like an angel than a Saint. There are others like 
> him. BUT the Malkioni do not like to admit to that."

> Any thoughts?

Yingar who?

> (viii) OK, dumb point now. If some people believe that the different sects of 
> the Invisible God should use different systems of sorcery then how do they 
> explain divine magic under which Storm Bull and Primal Chaos both obey the same 
> rules? Personally, I think there is more of a difference between Issaries and 
> Lankhor Mhy than between the Hrestoli and the Rokari!

There are quite a lot of differences between the different sects, else 
there would be only one. Admittedly the differences are more in the line 
Issaries - Etyries, but that's the difference of cyclical or non-cyclical 
magic...

> I hope that my comments are:(a) not too confused and (b) not too stupid, but as 
> a Malkioniophile I was rather concerned to find that the West and sorcery were
> in such a state of flux. Personally, I find this even sadder when we recall that 
> it was in the West, with Prince Snodal of Loskalm, that Glorantha began.

_________________________________
Oliver Jovanovic in X-RQ-ID: 1031

> or independent sorcerers. Add in Arolint, Carmania, Dara Happa, 
> the East Isles, Esrolia, Fonrit, the Kingdom of Ignorance, Maslo, 
> Peloria, Orathorn and the Vadeli Isles - all non Malkioni sorcery 
> using cultures (only one island out of the thousands that comprise 
> the East Isles follows the way of Malkion), and it seems pretty clear

Well, Carmania and Dara Happa have Malkionist sorcery "healed" of 
monotheism, I'd expect, so that's one kind of Stygian worship; Ralios and 
southern and western Maniria have Stygian sorcerers, too - all of them 
stem from Malkionism, so their sorcery is bound to be somewhat different, 
but similar in most aspects. The main difference I see is their attitude 
to familiars and their limitation to certain Runes/areas of influence 
which ought to go hand in hand with those of their respective cults.
Fonritian sorcery seems to be Rokari-dominated, according to Greg's 
Umathela description.
Fonrit does have sorcery, but that seems to have been imported by the God 
Learners. After these were wiped out, their lesser disciples seem to have 
remained, and are now unaligned - sorry, David.

> that the Malkioni do not exactly dominate Glorantha, or even comprise 
> the majority of sorcery users. I'm not even including the Mostali or the 
> Trolls, which make up a decent size group of non Malkioni sorcery users. 

Trolls are Arkati, and Arkat learned Hrestoli sorcery after he left 
Brithini ways, so their sorcery is somewhat Hrestoli. Same for all the 
other Stygian sorcerers, who are aligned to conventional theistic cults as 
well. See above. (I'd say that only troll-related henotheost sorcery ought 
to be called stygian, which comes from the Greek and means dark.)
Mostali sorcery definitely is non-Malkioni, and is practised by them and 
their human slaves only. The latter only in Slon and Dragon Pass (the 
Cannon Cult and other examples from Dwarf Run.

> The East is a far larger and more homogenous sorcery using culture
> than the West. I could see arguing that the Kralori Empire and
> the Kingdom of Ignorance use essentially the same system of
> sorcery. I'm not sure that the various Malkioni schools
> (Rokari, Hrestoli, Rokari, Galvosti, etc.) use a system that is
> as unified. I actually think that each is fairly unique in one way
> or another.

Larger - I dont know. More homogenous - well, there are the unified 
cultures of Vormain and Kralorela, but the East Isles hardly are unified. 
Why should their sorcery be so?

> There has been as little official material published on the West as 
> there has been on the East Isles, Kralorela or Pamaltela. And frankly, 
> Kralorela and the East Isles strike me as being as least as interesting 
> as the West, if not more so.

> I'm afraid I'm far more in agreement with Ken Rolston's attitude here -
> the only regions of Glorantha that have been developed in any detail
> are Dragon Pass, Pavis and Prax, secondarily the Lunar Empire, Holy 
> Country, Balazar, Elder Wilds and the Wastes. Until the other regions
> are developed, the sorcery rules should deal with the sorcerers one
> will meet in the developed regions. In order of likelihood, that would appear
> to be:

> 1) Carmanians (occupying forces, settlers in Prax, Lunar Empire, Carmania) 
> 2) Arkati (Muse Roost, Dagori Inkarth trolls, Shadowlands trolls, Holy Country) 
> 3) Unaligned sorcerers (occupying forces, Lunar Empire, Carmania)
> 4) Atheists (God Forgot, Orathorn in the Wastes)
> 5) Kralori (Pavis, Kralorela)
> 6) Brithini (Sir Ethelrist and the Black Horse troop at Muse Roost)
> 7) Mostali (Pavis, Dwarf Run, Greatway, Lunar Empire)
> 8) Invisible Orlanth (Carmania, Lunar Empire)

Why make Ethilrist a Brithini? I'd figure him as Stygian, with all his 
darkness powers (Arkat didn't seem to age, either). The closest Brithini 
settlements are on the God Forgot Isles, Refuge and Casino Town are 
especially mentioned.
What's the difference between unaligned and atheist sorcerers? I can see 
three kinds of atheists on Glorantha: Brithini, Vadeli and God Learner 
spawn. Lunars are obviously aligned (with the Carmanian school's part of 
the Lunar College of Magic).


____________________________
Nick Brooke in X-RQ-ID: 1032
(in reaction to my mistakes in the history of sorcery)

>> Brithini sorcery can be expected to be notably different from Malkionist 
>> sorcery, especially considering their use of the Immortality spell...

> Y'know, this is like that old "Elf Sex" argument: some things we'd *think* 
> were Rune spells, Sorcery, Enchantments etc. can just happen naturally.  
> The Brithini caste system acts like a protracted ritual that keeps everyone 
> who participates fully in it from ageing.  It's us non-Brithini that have 
> to resort to Immortality spells ("Not another f***ing oyster!")...

Well, I considered the possibility that they didn't need any magic, as 
long as they ignored Time and the Comromise.

(Rokari and Hrestoli - I took the wrong order)

> Cart before the horse.  In the beginning, there were the Brithini, who 
> lived forever and had no gods.  In the Ice Age (Western name for the Great 
> Darkness), they ran into trouble and started dying.  Malkion taught most of 
> the Brithini about God, and they became Malkioni and didn't feel so bad 
> about dying any more -- though some remained stubborn, and these stole 
> Malkioni secrets to form the roots of the modern atheist Brithini culture 
> (NB: this relationship is very speculative, and dubious -- I am currently 
> Divining for a clear statement).

Yes, this is the most obscure part of Western sorcery's history.

> Immediately after the Dawn, the Malkioni religion stopped working.  Prince 
> Hrestol of Frowal (in Old Seshnela) had a vision (or went on a HeroQuest), 
> and then taught the Malkioni something new (see my piece on "What Makes the 
> West Tick" for suggestions as to what), making them into Hrestoli.  They 
> were still called Malkioni, though -- think, perhaps, of Saint Paul's 
> relationship to Christ and Christianity (esp. in view of Hrestol's "Road to 
> Damascus" vision of the Prophet Malkion?).

What do you mean "the Malkioni religion stopped working"? How did it work 
before?

> History happened for a while...  (again, see "WMtWT").  But at the start of 
> the Third Age, Rokar and a bunch of others in Seshnela thought Hrestol had 
> got it wrong, and tried to recreate the pristine form of pre-Hrestoli (i.e: 
> pre-Dawn) Malkionism.  That's why it looks so old-fashioned: they *want* it 
> to!  Rokarism is an attempt to bring back a dead religion.  I don't know if 
> it's achieved what it wants to, though the extended life through piety is 
> perhaps a pointer...

Did you make this logevity piece up as well as the Pharaoh bit, or do you 
base it on written evidence? Or is this your way to describe the 
distribution key for immortality spells?
Anyway, they might just continue what was interrupted by the Hrestoli, 
similar to the way the Roman Empire was continued by Charlemagne.

>> The Boristi offshoot of the Rokari Church can't be older than the greater 
>> darkness ... The Galvosti might be older than that ...

> I've always thought these two "quibbling" heresies were the result of God 
> Learner meddling in the conquered Stygian Empire in the Second Age.  Their 
> geographical spread (areas of Ralios not settled by Malkioni until the mid 
> First Age) seems to weigh against your early dating.

Well, if they were Arkati, they'd worship other deities. They seem not to, 
so they're maybe God Learner constructs (easier to make a sect than a 
god), or they're as old as I suggested.

>> The Henotheist Church ... are the homespun version of where the God
>> Learners started from.

> I'm not sure I follow you.  The Henotheists respect and worship their gods. 
> The God Learners used and abused the ones they discovered and/or created.  
> The connection seems weak.

Well, it was their knowledge the God Learners stole first. Maybe it's them 
who ought to have Runic sorcery, after Greg said the Westerners were not 
so hot on Runes any more?

> Hmmm...  In the beginning, the Jrusteli colonists were Seshnelan Malkioni 
> -cum- Hrestoli (as discussed above).  Their God Learners, in alliance with 
> the Seshnegi, conquered the Stygians of Ralios, and *then* stole the Arkat 
> cult's HeroQuesting secrets.  I don't think they ever *worshipped* gods 
> themselves -- they made gods for other people to worship, or made 
> themselves into gods, etc.  I don't see them falling into this 
> "Henotheistic" way -- it's like a debasement of what their "scientific 
> method" stands for.

> But I'm happy to blame God Learning on the filthy, stinking Vadeli!  (Along 
> with the weather, the price of shoes, UK corporation tax law, and 
> everything else irritating in the whole of Creation).

So we get a third atheist church. The real GLs were wiped out, but were 
all of their disciples?

___________________________
David Hall in X-RQ-ID: 1041

> Concerning ye olde debate on the Malkioni and sorcery:

> Dwarves. All I'm saying is that there are only some 770,000 dwarves in 
> Genertela which hardly makes them a majority. On the Elder Secret map there 
> are only three other dwarf symbols, at Jrustela, Slon and the Mari 
> Mountains of Pamaltela, but seven symbols in Genertela. 
> Who wants to play a dwarf and have to eat Alpha Red anyway? The majority of 
> players? Are they really a good reason not to incorporate the Malkioni 
> social structure into sorcery?

Well, there are the Mostal-worshipping humans of Slon who ought to be real 
fun to play. Then there's that dwarf band from ES some people might want 
to encounter. And Slon seems to be very large.

[Kralorela, East Isles]

You still ignore Vormain! And GoG tells us on page 34: (East Isles Gods: 
Initiates)
"Spirit Magic: none - the inhabitants of the East Isles use sorcery rather 
than spirit magic."

> Pamaltela. [...] The 
> other regions of Pamaltela (that information exists for, i.e. excluding 
> Laskal and Slon) are almost exclusively of the Pamaltelan pantheon. 
> Certainly no other types of sorcery are mentioned beyond the dwarves of the 
> Mari Mountains.

That leaves a lot of Mostal worshipping, sorcery using humans in Slon. And 
there were GLs in the malkionist colonies, who have done some teaching 
according to the Fonrit description. We don't know who was more prominent 
down there, the Hrestoli/Rokari Seshnegi, or the GLs, but I'd guess the 
Seshnegi were but the foot soldiers of the GLs.

> Oliver Jovanovic: my definition of Malkioni is the same as in the cult of 
> the Invisible God write-up, i.e. worshippers of the Invisible God. So I 
> include the Vadeli and the Stygians, but exclude the Carmanians.

Do the Vadeli worship? Why exclude the Carmanians?

> What is required is the same approach as with Shamanistic spirit cults and 
> Pantheonistic religions/cults. Basic generic sorcery rules should exist, 
> but they cannot just be presented standalone as they were in RQ3. Each 
> sorcery sect or group will use those rules in a different way: by having a 
> different spell list, different attitudes to who can use sorcery (or who 
> goes to heaven, or attitudes to women, or worship of icons, etc.), or even 
> a weird and unique type of magic. Ideally, I'm looking for a Cults of Prax 
> of sorcery, but with all the other innovations that were in Gods of 
> Glorantha. And in long-form.

Who doesn't? But we got to have some sorcery in the basic RQ4 rules, else 
AH would copy TSR politics. We all like that compan, do we?

> Carmanians. Unfortunately the rough draft of this I've seen for RQ4 doesn't 
> meet my requirements for a sect description. It's currently just additional 
> rules information with a bit of history tacked onto the front. It lacks 
> depth, its muddled, and the culture depicted is inadequate. 

> In a 1991 copy of Stafford and Petersens's Cult of the Invisible God (which 
> I hope to publish next year if it ain't in RQ4) the Carmanian school is 
> extinct. "Most Malkioni theologians believe that the Lunar Empire has 
> inherited the Carmanian heresy, and that the Lunars have simply replaced 
> the Invisible God with the Red Goddess." ( I love this concept!) In effect 
> it is no longer a Malkioni sect, it is now a Lunar sect.

What's the difference? Creator is part of the Lunar Pantheon. The 
lunarized Malkioni are simply "healed".

> As a result the religious and cultural link with the Red Goddess deserves a 
> lot of thought. Unfortunately the RQ4 version doesn't have or explore this 
> link, and the Invisible God is rather surprisingly still worshipped.

Honestly I don't see any more problems including the Red goddes into 
Carmanian Malkioni worship than that of Ernalda in Esrolian sorcery. And 
it is this kind of heresy we find "home". So the rules ought to present 
it. One might want to expand that writeup, though.

> Other stuff:

> Oliver Jovanovic:
>>3) Unaligned sorcerers (occupying forces, Lunar Empire, Carmania)

> I have serious problems with unaligned sorcerers! Mostly I want to burn 
> them, and I think I'm not alone in Glorantha. Because of the RQ3 Sorcery 
> rules and their lack of a cultural link there seems to have built up a 
> belief that there are loads of unaligned sorcerers around. Far from it, 
> they are extremely rare. Most are just apostates from existing sects, 
> probably cursed, and with short lives unless they are pretty powerful 
> and/or lucky. 

Yeah, they are God Learner spawn, and probably deserve that!

> The definition of an unaligned sorcerer is that he (or she) has no morals  
> - for he doesn't follow the Law of Malkion (or the Edict of Godunya, or the 
> Mechanical Principles of Mostal). Would you trust a guy who doesn't follow 
> any recognised morals? Are you sure he isn't going to Tap you when your 
> back is turned? Hey, he might be a Vadeli! Lock up your children, we all 
> know what the Vadeli do to them! 
> I suspect an unaligned sorcerer's time in Malkioni, or Kralori, or Dwarven, 
> or Lunar lands is finite.
[...]
> The only place I reckon you'll find unaligned sorcerers is in out of the 
> way places, the sort of places that Broos are found in - and such places 
> are dangerous enough! No wonder most Orlanthi reckon sorcerers are Chaotic 
> really...

You mean unaligned sorcerers are as popular everywhere as are Lunar 
missionaries outside the Empire? Well, then they have quite good chances. 
In the historical witch hunting, those powerful enough (e.g. Lucretia 
Boghia) never went to the pyre. I can see God Learner persecution on  a 
similar line: They burn the inepts, never the adepts.

And now to something completely different: Archery.

______________________________
Malcolm Cohen in X-RQ-ID: 1037

> This seems completely gratuitous to me.  Longbows are commonly matched to the
> user as is and there is no such rule.  Anyway, I never noticed a lack of damage
> from an impale on one of these things.

Well, as a hobby archer, I always ruled against the written rule that 
damage boni for throw weapons apply for bows, too, since everybody only 
buys bow that are matched. If someone picks up a foreign bow, he might be 
unlucky. There's a fine passage in the Heimskringla in Olaf Tryggvasons 
last battle, where the master archer's Einar Tambarskelve's bow breaks, 
and he takes the king's bow. He only exclaims "Too weak, too weak is the 
king's bow!" and throws it away.

Sow if you use your own bow, be sure to have it made so strong that your 
damage bonus is added, else beat the bowyer to death with it - because 
that's about all it's good for.
-- 
--  Joerg Baumgartner   joe@sartar.toppoint.de

---------------------

From: tzunder@cix.compulink.co.uk (Tom Zunder)
Subject: Sorcerors
Message-ID: 
Date: 13 Jun 93 15:15:41 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1052


Why aren't more chaotic sorcerors?

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Orlanth Rex!                            tzunder@cix.compulink.co.uk 
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