From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer)
To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest)
Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Fri, 08 Oct 1993, part 2
Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily)
Sender: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM
Precedence: junk
The RuneQuest Daily and RuneQuest Digest deal with the subjects of
Avalon Hill's RPG and Greg Stafford's world of Glorantha.
Send submissions and followup to "RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM",
they will automatically be included in a next issue. Try to change the
Subject: line from the default Re: RuneQuest Daily... on replying.
Selected articles may also appear in a regular Digest. If you
want to submit articles to the Digest only, contact the editor at
RuneQuest-Digest-Editor@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM.
Send enquiries and Subscription Requests to the editor:
RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Henk Langeveld)
---------------------
From: allan@tcrystal.gla.ac.uk (Allan Henderson)
Subject: finite limit to the sizes of spirits
Message-ID: <29553.9310071633@sushi.tcrystal.tcrystal.glasgow.ac.uk>
Date: 7 Oct 93 16:33:00 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1944
WARNING This contains some more stuff on maximum spirit POW
I have given the thought of spirits eventually having power up in the hundreds
some thought. If you only get a power gain role if you have less than 95% chance
of success and a maximum of 1 power gain per week, and a success change of 5%
then I agree with the idea of the average agressive spirit gaining 2.1 Power
per year. Even with a suggested wasting of 1 POW per year this means that
ancient spirits may have in excess of 1000 POW, but the 95% chance will now take
over as there are fewer spirits to attack with POW in the range 990-1010. So
spirits cannot go above a certain limit statistically. I cannot work out this
limit as I cannot begin to guess at the number of spirits on the SP or how
frequently they interact. (more topics for discussion).
The only way then for a spirit to gain large ammounts of POW is to be
worshiped. Perhaps there is some lower limit on the amount of POW that a spirit
can have before it can be worshiped, i.e. is a large enough landmark on the SP
for POW to be directed at it. After all if a spirit is severly lacking in POW
then why should anyone worhip it as the benefits it can bestow must be limited.
Cheers,
Allan (stat head) Henderson
---------------------
From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner)
Subject: Spirit Plane and such
Message-ID:
Date: 8 Oct 93 05:34:34 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1945
Tom Zunder asks:
>Are we discussing RQ or Glorantha here?
>Cults obviously need explaining a little more, the suggestion that
>one progresses from cult to cult thru life seems good and real. It's also
>p**s easy to implement.
>The only decision to be made is what happens to your reusable magic.
>Probably it doesn't change, unless you opt for, but that's a decison for
>a referee or AH to make and publish.
All we'd need would be a progression chart, or a specific rule how to
handle associate divine magic for initiates (together with definitive
rules for reusable divine spells for initiates), since most of these
changes are just these.
>Chaosium/AH could publish the cultural religions of Orlanthi, Solar etc,
>in much the same shape as the Seven Mothers. Some articles from Greg in a
>RQ Companion about the cultural path that people take, ie
>Voria-Ernalda-Ty Kora Tek and how to manage the changes. It's all quite
>easy.
If Chaosium is interested, and this could be published without
infringing AH's trademark rights...
>Lhankor Mhy and Issaries are a case where I'd support a rewrite.
>Lhankor Mhy as written up just isn't the LM that a Sartar clan would know.
>It needs breaking down into a barbarian lawspeaker cult and a civilised
>scholar cult. Both can co-exist, both are Lhankor Mhy, but the foci
>are different. (No, I don't mean the spirit magic foci either).
Orlanth, too. The write-up in RoC is neither the Sartarite nor the
definitive Praxian version (i.e. the Pol Jonis' deity), nor does it fit
for any other Orlanthi region without severe changes. I missed Orlanth
Rex, and I'd like to see Orlanth Thief, Lightbringer, Lightning or Snow
(as hinted at in KoS p.256).
>Magic
>I think the path to enriching magic is to develop slow magics, like the
>travelling omen ritual in RQA2. Slow and interesting magics which are
>cheapin MP or POW to cast, but take time and preparation. Some spirit
>magics are probably wrong, heal is too powerful, but like the GL cults,
>we can't rebuild RQ without them.
Tom gets the big Y award for the greatest truth of this daily!
>HeroQuest
>I think a Storm Bull dropping a rock on a chaos monster rates as a
>HeroQuest. How mythically important depends on two things;
>How big a monster
>How big a rock
>:-)
I'd like to toss in a quote from Greg "all-he-says-is-wrong" Stafford,
KoS p.165, bottom paragraph:
"Once they are all ready, everyone (including the enemies) must
co-ordinate effects to harness all of their magical power and
potential, and to transform the event into a heroquest."
This about the Short Lightbringers' Pilgrimage, an event _designed_ to
become a heroquest. So if you want to make a riddle contest between Joe
the Windlord and Bob the Sun Lord a Heroquest, they need to "harness
all of their magical power and potential". Just speaking the phrases
won't do it.
>Teshnos
>Anyone know anymore about Teshnos? This seems like a good place for
>some cultural diversity. The Genertela book description of the religion
>looks like some Nick Brooke cultural diversity might be fun.
Quite a while ago someone (I think Oliver Jovanovic) tossed in some
interesting ideas about Teshnan Solar deities and Buddhism.
Neil Robinson in X-RQ-ID: 1897
>Subject: Stream spirits and River Gods
>What? Who said that streams don't have spirits. What about the Zola
>Fel? Many other river spirits and gods are described too.
>Thinking about the Zola Fel brings up an interesting question. Being
>a river, it exists on the normal plane, but being a god, it is also on
>the god/hero plane. By expanding this, we can see the Zola Fel on ALL
>planes, but in a different form, I guess.
There are almost no deities without a physical manifestation somewhere
in/around Glorantha. Look at the sun (Yelm and others), the seasonal
and local winds/storms (Orlanth, Storm Bull, Brastalos), the Eiritha
Hills, etc, etc, etc...
>Now for my question: which rivers are gods, and which are spirits? I
>would guess that the more worshippers, or the larger the river, the
>better chance it has of being a god.
I can agree with that. The difference between a Potameid and a River
God(dess, in the case of natural spirits I'm all in for equal rites)
mostly is the area they reign.
>By this definition, all Gods are really just powerful spirits that
>gain additional power from their worshippers, and the
>mundane/spirit/hero/god planes are really different parts of the same
>place. We 'digest God-Learners' just have trouble understanding the
>concept.
Even though you put it so clearly?
Robert McArthur X-RQ-ID: 1899
>Subject: illumination and hyena skins
>Hmm, can anyone provide any details/explanation on how close any other seven
>mothers are to their counterparts (eg. Etyries vs Issaries)? Especially given
>the absolute similarity in the powers/rune spells available.
Cults of Prax had Etyries as a daughter of Issaries. I don't know what
exactly the situation in RQ3 was, but Etyries is now the daughter of a
Lunar merchant who was human, but attained god-hood.
And nitpicking: Etyries is _not_ one of the seven mothers.
>For example,
>no other cult besides Humakt and Yanafals has reusable sever spirit, even
>though many are deeply associated with the death rune.
Neither has Yanafal. Ref: Glorantha Box Players Book p. 26
>From: JARDINE@RMCS.CRANFIELD.AC.UK
X-RQ-ID: 1901
>Subject: Protective Circle - *Raise Shields*
>Ref: X-RQ-ID: 1889 (Kirsten Niemann)
> About protective circle:
>4) Forget about the perfect circle bit (tooo much trouble) the next thing you
> know some GM will be asking the sorceror to make a roll to see whether he has
> inscribed his circle within tollerance limits (Arg!). Allow the the area to
> be of any shape, but the maximum radius rule applies. Thus squares and
> rectangles are OK, but circles of the same maximum radius will always have a
> a greater area.
If the circle is sorcery, and a western wizard uses one, wouldn't he
use a triangle, the rune of law, rather than a circle, the rune of
light?
Just into the off: How likely are female sorcerers/wizards in Western
societies (Hrestoli, Rokari)? What would be their role?
Geoff Gunner in X-RQ-ID: 1902
>Subject: Spirit Plane (again...)
[Lots of sensible ideas]
>The three planes are interlinked; individuals possess souls, souls possess
>attributes. An example: a spider has a spirit; this spirit partakes of
>'spiderishness'. So in a sense, all spiders 'worship' Gorakikki. Intelligent
>creatures have a concious decision on what 'attributes' to emulate.
[...]
Spiders worship Aranea, a sister of Gorakiki. Else I agree.
>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.
Don't Shamans just swap realms with their fetches?
Do you intend to establish some Gloranthan Dreamlands similar to
Lovecraft's?
>I prefer European elves to Gloranthan, and forsee some good stuff
>coming from this approach.
Welcome in the ranks of Alternate Glorantha fans! I have used the
European/Tolkienesque/Midkemian approach to Elves and their gradual
spititualisation (Alfar, as published in Vikings) for my campaign for
several years. I doubt that Elf and Aldryami are fully interchangeable
terms for anyone, even Glorantha veterans.
>Ghouls I can see as a species that are moving the
>other way in a particularly nasty manner.
Yep.
Colin Watson in X-RQ-ID: 1905
>Subject: Planes; streams; frogs etc...
>GOD PLANE/SPIRIT PLANE
>I thought the major distinction between the GP and the SP was that the GP
>existed outwith Time. The God Plane is where the Gods live; its where
>you go on HeroQuests; its where lots of weirdo effects happen because of
>the absence of (objective) Time.
>I would have thought that there must be a major threshold between the
>SP and the GP (or the Mundane Plane & GP for that matter) which is *difficult*
>to cross - the place where Time ceases. I don't buy the idea that a Shaman
>can enter the God Plane via the Spirit Plane any easier than a normal
>corporeal person can enter the God Plane from the Mundane Plane. To me
>there is a huge qualitative difference between the God Plane and the Spirit
>Plane. (The Outer Spirit Plane is just an area of the SP where Big Spirits
>hang out. It's not the God Plane. Nowhere near. *Maybe* Big Spirits can
>become Gods if they accept the binding conditions of the Compromise and
>transcend into the God Plane. Maybe.).
I'd like to pursue my theory of gradual transition:
The further away from the Material Plane, the less binding is the
cnflict, the less present is time. Journeys into the outer SP might
take different amounts of time subjectively and objectively. Since the
God Planes are outside of Time's influence, I'd suggest that the
subjective time passes a lot faster than objective (material plane)
time. (This is influenced by Steve Maurer's heroquest rules, I admit,
where it is stated that magic points don't regenerate in the
heroplane).
And to reach the God Plane via heroquest, I suggested the use of a
ritual ceremony spell "Spiritual Reenactment " a while
ago, which would have similar effects like a shamans discorporation,
with the benefit of jumping across the spirit plane travel, and leading
directly into the mythic event specified.
>Also, I'm of the opinion that the God Plane has Substance which the SP
>lacks. Real combat works on the God Plane because the participants have
>substance - it's meaningless on the Spirit Plane because everything there
>is ethereal (lacking SIZ=substance). Ok, spirits on the SP can have
>Appearance: the SP doesn't have to be gray and featurless, but neither will
>it have all the features of the Mundane Plane.
Try Illusion spell effects: a temporal reality is created, complete
with appearance, size etc. The deity maintains the reality inside its
realm. On the usual heroquest the reality is created by the ritual
spell. The absence of time makes maintaining temporal effdects easy, of
course...
>Greg:
>>why SHOULDN'T rocks and streams have spirits, as all good animist believe?
>I have problems considering spirits of inanimate objects. For starters they
>are not "alive" - if you break them into pieces what happens
>to the spirit? Does it divide among the pieces? Does it stay with one
>piece? Imagine if a mountain is broken into boulders, and the boulders
>into pebbles. Does each pebble have a spirit?
Two possible, non-exclusive explanations:
1) Mountains are places with a multitude of creatures living
in/on/around it; the deity or spirit of the mountain is kind of Esprit
de Corps. The substance is of secondary importance.
2) Mineral substance has life of its own, very slow, but persistant.
Divided into very small parts it cannot be perceived. Reassembled, it
might awake again - that's what the Mostali Reconstruction is about,
with Stone (shattered to fragments in the darkness) to restore,
>Streams are even more complicated, because they are not distinct objects -
>rather they are concepts: Is the stream defined as the water within it, or
>by the path it takes?
By the place it occupies and influences. Why else would Sun Couny
farmers far away from Zola Fel's banks participate n the River ritual?
Ok, they fetch the water in irrigation channels, still Zola Fel's
life-bringing influence extends to the plots as well.
>Living things, on the other hand, are easy to discern as separate, discrete,
>contiguous entities. In fact, I'd say that the definition of a Living Thing
>is something which has a Spirit.
And a body. Ghosts are per definition not alive, nor are ancestors'
spirits. But then Death has a different meaning on Glorantha than in
real life.
>Anyway, the important thing is the Appearance of the spirit - what will it
>look like in the spirit world? For some reason nymphs don't appear as
>streams or ponds, they appear as attractive young women. I can't think of
>any good spiritualogical reason for this...
Place=Land=Earth=Female might be the reasoning chain. I never
understood why the spirits of places only take male forms. That they
take humanoid forms reflects the strength of the man rune on Glorantha.
In ancient time they might have taken Dragnewt form, when that Rune was
predominant.
>'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?
Well, I am a chemist - Inorganic and Organic is mostly a matter of
definition, and may well be transformed from one to the other. (There
was the famous transformatiion of ammonium carbonate into urea (sp?)
which proved that no "spark of life" was needed to produce organic
matter from inorganic matter.) For the same reason I think your
comparison is apt, because enough of substance not-yet-spirit may form
a real spirit, especially if enhanced from some source or the other,
like worship, or runic ties. Think of Rune Metals.
>Now, I was hoping someone would come up with some good ideas about elementals
>in the spirit world. Maybe these are your rocks and streams?
They'l associate with them, if of the appropriate element. More
important to me: What exatly are elementals supposed to be, and what
about more sentient elemental creatures? The Gargoyle is one example,
I'd like to see similar for the other elements.
>Robert (McArthur):
>Fair point, its difficult to argue this one. But I'd say a Deity needs someone
>*outwith* her Being to do the worship. Self-worship isn't enough. If the
>frogs *are* Frog Woman then surely their worship is self-worship?
As is Humakt worship for good Humakti, etc. That's one of the points of
resembling one's deity.
>Geoff:
>>Now, I've always seen people`s spirits as existing on
>>the spirit plane at the same time, which I think's the implicit assumption
>>of RQ.
>Curiously, when we discussed this very point within our RQ group, we came to
>the conclusion that spirits attached to the mundane plane don't exist on
>the spirit plane.
Seconded.
>I'd say there is no SIZ in the spirit plane, only APParent size. Things
>look as big as they would be on the mundane plane; but they are
>insubstantial.
...until a shape- and reality-giving entity creates more physical
manifestations (illusions, see above).
>Joerg: (Still not convinced about POW deterioration...)
>Your suggestion about stopping POW-gains for "dead" spirits seems very
>reasonable. It certainly prevents old spirits from getting huge. Adopting this
>approach, I wouldn't even let dominant-possessors get a POW gain otherwise
>shamanic ghosts could become virtually immortal (by possessing a new body
>when they die).
Ghosts are kind of immortal, unliving sprirts bound to the Border of SP
and MP. If a shaman could choose, he'd choose free existance on the
spirit plane over bound existance on the border. She might even be able
to create her own reality.
>I still have a slight problem concerning the ever-increasing number of spirits.
>If spirits don't deteriorate, then the population of spirits must be
>constantly increasing. Does Heaven ever get full up?
Nope. Rebirth is an important mechanism to keep life force circulating,
see my example with beast spirits and their deities. There are,
however, religions which offer solace with the deity after death as
well as rebirth (e.g. combined Orlanth and Ty Kora Tek afterlife
ideas), and might even return as ancestor spirit at the same time. Try
illumination to understand this, maybe Nick'll ask the appropriate
riddles.
>I still prefer the idea that spirits are dissolved and recycled. I postulate
>that the total magical energy in the universe is constant, not
increasing.
I disagree. Chaos keeps leaking in, and keeps annihilating magic.
Tapping (creatures or myths) diminishes magical potential permanently.
There must be some continuous source of magic within Time.
>I liked your suggestions for Ghoulish motivation. Would you say that the
>choice of becoming a Ghoul was voluntary? At what point should the decision be
>made?
Involuntary, if transformation into a Vampire or other undead was
attempted, and failed. Voluntary, if of a real necromantic (in
rpg-sense) persuasion. The decision should be made at transition from
life to the other status, whateveer it'll be, after departure from life
there are few ways back.
>Something I wondered about:
>A religion's doctrine may state that the spirits of devout followers go
>to meet with their God in the afterlife; but this don't necessarily make it so.
>Priests may have cast-iron proof that their god exists; but do they have
>any proof of what happens in the afterlife? Maybe there's room for Faith here.
Joerg
--
-- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de