From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer)
To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest)
Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Wed, 06 Oct 1993, part 1
Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily)
Sender: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM
Precedence: junk
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---------------------
From: davidc@kultarr.cs.uwa.oz.au (David Cake)
Subject: Spirit Plane
Message-ID: <199310050740.PAA10270@kultarr.cs.uwa.oz.au>
Date: 5 Oct 93 07:41:40 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1908
>
> From: eosgg@raesp-farn.mod.uk (Geoff Gunner)
> Subject: Spirit Plane (again...)
> Message-ID: <9310041315.AA17392@raesp-farn.mod.uk>
> Date: 4 Oct 93 13:15:53 GMT
> X-RQ-ID: 1902
>
> Geoff Gunner here, folks.
>
> GP = Gods/Hero Plane, SP = Spirit Plane, MP = Material Plane
> There is a heirarchy; MP -> SP -> GP. ( -> ? )
> Each successive level is an abstraction of the previous.
Quite reasonable.
> Things such as fear spirits are much more explainable. They might even be
> linked to a god, if 'fear' has been personnified into a deity.
>
If fear is an attribute of a deity, it will have fear spirits associated with
it.
>
> On taking myself to another plane, I can make my *spirit* aware of the 'rational
> me', and so extend myself into the spirit plane (note, this isn't sending 'me'
> off into the spirit plane, but bringing the spirit to me.) This seems to me
> to be how shamans and dream workers do it.
>
Quite reasonable - but 'bringing the spirit plane to you' is in rules terms
Second Sight, I would guess. Not discorporation - which starts with gaining
awareness of the spirit plane, but also includes moving your spirit free from
the body. Perhaps some people can do this in dreams?
> The idea of transferring myself physically into the SP I'm having a lot of
> problems with ( e=mc^2, after all! The physical can't exist on the spiritual,
> so where does it go ? Saved up as raw energy for the transfer back ?
I just don't like it. Why make it something possible if it makes no
sense? Certainly for it a spirit being to gain a physical body in moving closer
to the mundane plane would be exceptional. I prefer to think that most of the
summonable creatures with bodies are summoned from the GP, and that the GP has
some sort of physical existence.
> Hence
> the mythical time limitations on walking the planes, as this energy is slowly
> dissipating. Or perhaps it could get 'eaten' by some spiritual horror).
I thought that the time limit was more from fear of getting lost.
> And transferral the other way (i.e. Demonic appearence) has the same problems.
> But note - the use of energy to create mass might account for the temperature
> drop/rise present at so many mythical happenings. Anyone help me out of this
> hole I've dug myself ?
Well, I can tell you that you are not going to get around it with
physics. The amount of energy in the heat change, is very insignificant
campared to mc^2. I once calculated that for m=1kg, the amount of energy is
sufficient to vaporise a sphere of Ice well over a km in diameter.
I guess summoned things that have physical bodies already have them
before summonable.
>
> And what if a species, rather than an individual, learnt to cross the boundary
> between the planes ? As with all invader species, they would find life a lot
> easier. So the Tuatha de Daan (?) retreat from the Milesians into the lands
> of Faerie in Celtic mythos. They would gain in spiritual skills to help them
> survive but slowly loose their physical skills until they were fully part of
> the spirit world (Irish legends are full of the TdD using mortals to do their
> dirty work). I prefer European elves to Gloranthan, and forsee some good stuff
> coming from this approach. Ghouls I can see as a species that are moving the
> other way in a particularly nasty manner.
>
I prefer to think that in RQ terms the TdD live on the God-Plane.
I actually think of HeroQuesting as most HeroQuesting as not involving
directly moving to the Hero-Plane, but perceiving it, and increasing your
presence there, so that your physical efforts have more significance. Also,
as you perceive and move in the HP, some places that are neighbouring on the
HP may not be physically as close. Some places on the HP may not appear to have
a physical correspondence that we can locate, such as Hell or the Sky. This,
however, does no mean that it is not real in some sense.
>
>
> ps. Has anyone done any work on translating C&S magic into RQ terms ?
> Although most of it is more appropriate to medieval FRP, things like the
> Drug Trance and Power Word magics are very tempting !
>
Well, the Sorcery system that I am still working on (very intermitently) is
influence by C & S Basic Magick. But I would love to see more differentiation
of the different approaches to the same spells, like C&S Drug Trance or
Thaumaturgists.
Someone else said
>
> 'Course, you could say that everything on the Mundane Plane has an underlying
> Magical Structure. The magical structure of the Living is a Spirit. The
> magical structure of the Non-living is something less than a spirit but still
> magical in some way. (I'd draw a real-world analogy with Organic and Inorganic
> chemistry; but I ain't no chemist.) Perhaps this magical structure is visible
> on the Spirit Plane... who knows?
I think that there should be some relationship between the mundane and the
spirit plane geography. Things with spirits associated with them, particularly,
such as Streams and rocks. The same goes for the Earth, which after all has
a large pantheon. But that does not mean that all the spirit plane is this
closely associated with the mundane (only the Frontier region), and it does
not mean that all the mundane plane things are represented (only those things
with spiritual importance, which generally means not transient).
>
Also, on thing like Frogs and Frog Woman - frogs have spiritual presence, and
so the existence of many frogs give a source of froggy power. Worshipping
Frog Woman (which humans do, and frogs generally do not) gives this froggy
power a name and an associated presence, and allows humans to tap into this
power. If humans worshipped a different Frog deity, then they would be able
to summon it and talk to it - though maybe they need to HeroQuest to make this
deity real. But this other deity would tap the same source of froginess.
I too, deny ever having been a God-Learner.
And on the subject of deteriorating spirits - I dislike it, because it makes
it highly unclear what is meant by the afterlife. Gloranthans fear above all
else the loss of the Immortal soul, and this makes it sound inevitable for
anyone not saved from this fate by their god.
I much prefer the lack of memories that has always been mentioned.
Spirits that die first lose tracks of their earthly motivations, and then
gradually lose all memories, and then when they have lost all the memories that
connect them to Earth they go to join their god, drifting towards the Heroplane,
'connected' to their God by initiation. Spirits that are not initiated drift
with less purpose, perhaps ending up at Daka Fal.
Ghosts exist both in the normal, bound form (conventional ghosts) and
ocassional ghosts that do not lose their connections to the mundane plane. A
special example is the various ghost battles, where the ghosts do not go their
eternal rest because they are constantly reminded of the battle with their
enemies by their attacks. They may forget everything else but the battle, but
the battle remains.
Just my thought
Cheers
Dave Cake
---------------------
From: STEVEG@ARC.UG.EDS.COM (Steve Gilham Entropy requires no maintenance)
Subject: C&S quest
Message-ID: <01H3QGJBQ9IQ002G2X@UG.EDS.COM>
Date: 4 Oct 93 17:51:08 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1909
>ps. Has anyone done any work on translating C&S magic into RQ
>terms ? Although most of it is more appropriate to medieval FRP,
>things like the Drug Trance and Power Word magics are very
>tempting !
I made a number of jottings in the margin of my copy of C&S to
this effect, and sketched out a conversion of the Basic Magick
effects to Battle-magic (RQ2 notation here). The most difficult
thing was trying to make an RQ equivalent for the 10,000xp
"Concentration level". For MKL I suggested sacrifice of current
level points of POW (which made the step from 21 to 22, involving
a sacrifice of 21 POW just a tad difficult.
I suppose I might as well dig them out & post
---------------------
From: STEVEG@ARC.UG.EDS.COM (Steve Gilham Entropy requires no maintenance)
Subject: Errata
Message-ID: <01H3QGPZGG8Y002RUR@UG.EDS.COM>
Date: 4 Oct 93 17:56:31 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1910
Newton Hughes noted in X-RQ-ID: 1906 that
>There's a Humakti (Platewalker) listed as having the Berserk
>spell.
In _Gods of Glorantha_ this became a Humakt special Rune spell.
There was some discussion of this in the Humakt issue of Reaching
Moon; a suggestion was that this was a "go out in a blaze of
glory" spell.
---------------------
From: glidedw@sfsuvax1.sfsu.edu (Godzilla's Home Boy)
Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Tue, 05 Oct 1993, part 2
Message-ID:
Date: 4 Oct 93 19:48:43 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1911
To Geoff gunner:
while I agree that moving from one place to another, ie to the spirit
Plane would be trouble, invoking einstein in relation to a magical world
is risdiculous. magic assumes the absence of science. fire burns as an
expression of s fire spirit, and not from combustion. The mechanics are
the same, and as guaranteed. This explains why a fire starting spell will
work as well, as a flint and iron combination or a bow and arrow kit.
magic is the high end of technology. That you have to involve mythology,
means that the use of technology can have side effects, that with
technology you don't see as easily.
I recently saw an article that claimed that if we changed all businesses
to the model used by The body shop, we'd still have problems. There is a
physical rainforest, et al damage, from using technology the way we do.
the collateral effect, over generations will change our mythology. RQ
seems a way to confront the changes of science and tech on our personal
myths, by designing the everyday world of the mythical, in terms that make
sense in dreams. The rules mechanics are a systemitization of our dream
counterparts. Using too much, such as modern physics, calls into question
the reason that magic is assumed to work. Einstein plays no part in my
games. To think that you can't go faster than light, when light itself is
a person, having form, is hard for me to deal with. What if the personage
of Light, which is the barrier, gives me permission to exceed itself? then
I just do so.
---------------------
From: yfcw29@castle.edinburgh.ac.uk
Subject: A Ralzakark Hypothesis
Message-ID: <9310051225.aa16442@uk.ac.ed.castle>
Date: 5 Oct 93 11:25:14 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1912
David Dunham wrote:
>>From: DScott@snail.demon.co.uk (David Scott)
>>Who thinks after reading Dorastor that Ralzakark is a part of
>>Nysalor/Gbaji/Arkat, and what will happen if all the parts are brought
>>together again. Will Nysalor/Gbaji/Arkat re-form.
>
>Ral(-???) + zak(-???) + ark(-at)?
See 'Dorastor : Land of Doom', pages 10-11, section titled 'The Second Age :
Dorastor in Ruins', note the following passages:
'In 842 Balarzak Leatherwing, a dragon-worshipper from the land of Tarsh,
led his companions to recover ash and water from the ruined place. They
reported sounds of huge forms moving in the night, and a terrifying
pulsating earthquake which thumped like a panicked heart and lasted for
many minutes. Balarzak and his companions returned alive and well, yet
all died within three years, none by normal means, with blood bubbling from his lips.'
'Two famous Talastari heroes, Turvoy the Foreigner and Hardral the Flying
Urox, entered Dorastor in 857 to repeat the adventures of Balarzak; they
emerged the following year as draugr.'
Hardral Ral
Balarzak + Zak
Arkat + Ark
= Ralzakark ?
Now I don't know much about these other two characters, but could this be
more than a coincidence? And what is a 'draugr'? I get the impression that
you wouldn't take one home to meet the folks, and Steve Thomas tells me it
is the Norse word for undead. So : three heroes (Arkat, Balarzak and Hardral)
enter Dorastor, meet an untimely demise ( Arkat is the possible exception
here) and up pops Ral-zak-ark. And one paragraph later, 'a hero called
Ragnaglar or Ralzakark embarked upon a great raid out of Dorastor...' Now,
where have I come across Ragnaglar before ...
+------------+--------------------------+
| Phil Hibbs | Kindly posted by my 'bro |
+------------+--------------------------+
---------------------
From: eosgg@raesp-farn.mod.uk (Geoff Gunner)
Subject: Mounted Combat and other stuff
Message-ID: <9310051314.AA10078@raesp-farn.mod.uk>
Date: 5 Oct 93 13:14:24 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1913
to Eric Johnson-DeBaufre, on your lumbering Uroxi.
The rules work fine for combat that lasts one round or more. Remember, the
'attack' is not a single attack but the effects of a number of feints, lunges,
etc. When you translate this to a situation where the combatants are only in
striking distance for a split-second, then the rules are no longer valid.
Instead trust your judgement. You could say that in dodging out of the way of
the spear left him too far away from the Zebra, so no return blow. Or, you
could be kind and have allowed him his strike. Depends how you saw the
situation. Incidentally, the movement-SR relationship is way, way out -
they bear little relation to reality.
re: the meta-cult, which one changes worship of aspects through one's life.
Seems to me that some sort of ceremony would arise in which (say at the cost
of one POW to your former god and one to the new) you could trade in old
divine spells for new. Otherwise, people would't sacrifice to the earlier
stages, saving up for later on in life. Better for the deities to get the
POW now and repay later (divine hire-purchase !)
re: spirits -
Does an earthworm have POW ? Do microbes ? Of Course ! (but problems -
you have a cold and cross your family's 'Warding'. Immediately every cold
germ in your body takes 3D3's worth of diruption. Take that, sniffly nose !)
So on the spirit plane you'll have a goodly thickness of tiny spirits below you
from the soil. And when High King Elf knobbled Mostal, did every rock die ?
So you may well have a sort of spiritual awareness of the soil under you.
And think about how people refer to a land a 'she' or whatever - it's alive, so
would probably exist on the spirit plane. Cosmic ! :-)
re: Colin Watson saying that Ghosts never acheive that state without help from
the living ..
*WHAT !??!* Loose all those lovely traditions of hauntings because of a
horrible crime, or unfulfilled life, and so on ? If there's one gripe I have
with RQ it's that it falls down heavily on the supernatural. I want fear,
terror, dread of the dark ! If it's just another monster to bash, that flies
out of the window as the players start to figure out how to kill it.
And in a previous letter I mentioned using physical skills on the spirit plane.
This is because I want to send players into there and not have them torn apart
by the first bunny rabbit which has been around and so has 60% in relevant
spirit skills, as opposed to their piffling 5%. And I don't want to use POW
as that then makes the whole idea of spirit combat a featureless stodge.
RQ2 related skills to POW anyway, so I'm only extending that a teensy bit ...
The idea of 'outer' and 'inner` spirit planes completely escapes me - why not
just regionalise the SP, like terrain has places where bad dudes hang out ?
Why give them a whole place of their own ? And if you say that they're
migrating away from the shallow end, where's their target ? The God plane ?
And re: Colin Watson's comment 'what happens if you break an object with a
spirit in into pieces - does each pebble have a spirit ?'
If I break you into pieces, does your hand have a spirit ? Your nose ? No.
Slow change is okay, but fast change frees the spirit from it's attachment.
I agree, not every inanimate thing has to have a spirit, but an awful lot of
cultures early on in our history did think so. So if my Telmori believes that
the little pebble he sat on earlier has a spirit and my Sorcerer thinks it
doesn't, who's right ?
Geoff. (with you in spirit ...)
---------------------
From: yfcw29@castle.edinburgh.ac.uk
Subject: Spiritual Musings
Message-ID: <9310051337.aa29897@uk.ac.ed.castle>
Date: 5 Oct 93 12:37:49 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1914
Spirit Plane Musings
--------------------
1. I agree with Colin Watson about the difference between 'detached' and
'Corporeal' spirits (including bound spirits). 'Corporeal' spirits should
only be at risk from spirits with 'visibility' or a natural equivalent.
The Second Sight spell is a puzzler though. You can use it to look at both
bound spirits AND spirits on the spirit plane! Perhaps spirits on the spirit
plane are only seen as though from afar, ie in less detail?
2. Of course rivers and mountains have spirits! These spirits/deities
are the Mythical consequence of the _worldly_function_ of the thing, and are
_not_ simply a result of it's mere material substance. They do not inhabit
the stream/mountain in the way that a living being does, though they may
manifest within it at times.
To destroy a river god, you would have to destroy the river. A river is
not mere water, after all after a few days all the water in the river has
cycled out of it anyway. But the river still exists. Mountains are a bit
different, but just chipping bits off it won't get you far. Eventualy
you could destroy or damage it, thus it's importance as part of the landscape
and ecology would be reduced, thus the mountain god would be hurt. Likewise
you could dam the river and so wound the river god. (That is a very
interesting idea actualy. Would a heroquest be required? There is a dam which
holds back the sludgestream river in Dorastor.)
Personality Traits in RQ
------------------------
Personality traits NEVER force a player into a course of action, as I understand
it they are a score card of how the character has behaved in the past, and thus
how other people expect the character to behave in future. If the character
starts behaving differently, the traits will change to reflect this. All the
criticisms of personality traits I have ever heard were based on the
misconception that they force they players hand, they do not! If your GM
uses traits to manipulate the characters that is a gross abuse of power.
Diatribe over.
Actualy, personality traits could offer a realy handy alternate spirit combat
system, as was discussed in the daily recently. The turn sequence would be :
1. Players pick the trait they will fight with.
2. Make resistance rolls, trait versus trait.
3. Looser marks off 1D3 MPs.
The victor may make a trait increase roll, both may make POW gain rolls.
I have not realy thought about the implications of this, I just thought of it.
Simon Hibbs
-----------
---------------------
From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu (Paul Reilly)
Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Tue, 05 Oct 1993, part 1
Message-ID: <9310051545.AA22776@minerva.phyast.pitt.edu>
Date: 5 Oct 93 15:45:13 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1915
Dave Cake brings up the example of River Gods & spirits as creatures that
exist on the God and Mundane planes simultaneously.
Many gods are like this.
Orlanth's body is made of the great circulating winds of Glorantha.
Yelm IS the Sun.
Xentha IS Night.
Lorian IS the Great Sky River (the blue we see through the Sky Dome)
Annilla IS the Blue Moon
Etc, etc.
More later,
Paul Reilly
---------------------
From: ddunham@radiomail.net (David Dunham , via RadioMail)
Subject: Re: traits; elves; Issaries
Message-ID: <199310051556.AA28234@radiomail.net>
Date: 5 Oct 93 15:56:24 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1916
>From: Tom.Zunder@mettav.royle.org (Tom Zunder)
>From: Paul.Baker@mettav.royle.org (Paul Baker)
>I'm appalled by the idea that people want to adopt the traits/passions
>from
>Pendragon. This mechanism is deterministic, allows no free thinking
>roleplaying and presumes that none of us can play a character from a
>nother
>culture or mindset. If you need these mechanics then you won't
>understand
>what they're trying to do, if you understand whta they're trying to do
>you don't need the mechanic.
The idea behind using traits is two-fold. First, it's a way to indicate
what a religion values, using standardized terms. Second, it's a way to
measure a character's personality. Slay an opponent who begs for mercy?
Gain a Cruel check, and your trait will probably change.
When rolls are called for, the assumption isn't that you can't play your
character, but that the character in his world might behave differently
than the player, with her meta-knowledge, would. Trait rolls should never
be slavishly applied. If you've seen that, then I submit you've seen bad
GMing.
I use trait rolls to see if your character can "convince the examiners" and
advance in a religion. If you actually behave the way the religion values,
you've earned checks and gone up in those traits, and making the rolls
should be easy.
>From: eosgg@raesp-farn.mod.uk (Geoff Gunner)
>And what if a species, rather than an individual, learnt to cross the boundary
>between the planes ? As with all invader species, they would find life a lot
>easier. So the Tuatha de Daan (?) retreat from the Milesians into the lands
>of Faerie in Celtic mythos. They would gain in spiritual skills to help them
>survive but slowly loose their physical skills until they were fully part of
>the spirit world (Irish legends are full of the TdD using mortals to do their
>dirty work). I prefer European elves to Gloranthan, and forsee some good stuff
>coming from this approach.
Elves in my PenDragon Pass (non-Gloranthan) game are like this (tho the
Otherworld isn't the standard spirit plane). Since time passes differently
in the Otherworld, this is the source of the rumor that elves are
long-lived.
>From: C442196@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu (Newton Hughes)
>the one thing that
>seems extremely weird to me about Issaries is the restriction on theft.
>I never heard of a Real World god who drew such a distinction; usually
>their cultures consider both trading and thievery to be dishonorable
>activities.
Hmm, maybe Issaries should have the Honest trait (not one of those I'd
assigned)...