From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer)
To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest)
Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily)
Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Fri, 05 Nov 1993, part 3
Precedence: junk
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From: graeme.lindsell@anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell)
Subject: Pameltela, Ompalam and DI's (again)
Message-ID: <9311030100.AA21045@cscgpo.anu.edu.au>
Date: 3 Nov 93 17:00:14 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2196
Sandy writes:
>The only GENERTELANS with ideological reasons for opposing slavery
>might be the Orlanthi (at least the only major culture -- I'm sure
>plenty of minor sects concur),
What is the Loskalmi attitude, they seem pretty idealistic and
I could see them claiming slavery is evil? The Kralorelans, if
they are much like the Chinese, wouldn't really have much slavery,
it was never a big part of their culture.
The Orlanthi and slavery: in KoS it says that the Orlanthi in
Dragon pass have let the Thrall status fall out of practice, to
"emphasize their love of freedom" - of course this is an Orlanthi
document. What is the attitude of the Ralian Orlanthi, whom you
referred to as real barbarians a week or so ago, towards Thralls?
>but in much of Pamaltela, slavery is
>seen as a facet of the Great Darkness, kin to Chaos. The very fact
>that there is a god of Slavery in Pamaltela indicates the rareness of
>the phenomenon. Genertela has no God of Slavery, because it is
>universal. What's the point? Ompalam has won, there.
This is a strange comment. One could as easily say that Yelm is
weak in Dara Happa, because he is worshipped there and that Orlanth
rules there, because he isn't. I think Nick would call this a
"Lunar philosophy" ie wierd. :-)
The one reference to Ompalam in Pameltela I've seen (the land of Fonrit
in Heroes No 6, written by Greg S. and one Sandy Petersen) suggests that
Ompalam is a powerful god there (it's in the description of the city
cult of Tondiji, which is said to be the greatest in the world, since
"major cults such as Ompalam, Yelm and Zorak Zoran are all subservient
to Tondiji inside his city"). Of course Fonrit, which is described as
being like Moslem Africa, could be the exception in Pameltela. The
next ToTRM should illuminate us! In general in Glorantha, if a god
is worshipped in an area then he/she/it is considered powerful
there, rather than the reverse.
Slavery in Genertela is probably a result of the death of Genert
and the need for agriculture, as mentioned a couple of fixes^H^H^H^H^H
Digests ago. Most premodern agriculural societies seemed to have some
form of slavery: the civilizations in Genertela practice it to survive,
to some degree. In Pameltela, agriculture isn't needed to survive as
Pamalt provides, at least to the Agimori. Slavery there is simply evil,
and people need the aid of a chaos god to practice it successfully. I
think that Ompalam would offer magic that in some way makes slavery
a desirable, or at least tolerable state: most initiates of Ompalam
would be slaves who use his (addictive) magic to make their lives
less horrible.
RE DI vs Rune Magic
>It used to, back in RQ I. A priest had the spell Divine Intervention,
>which was one-use. Each point in the spell gave you +10% towards the
The DI spell was there in RQ2 as well. My idea was slightly
different, since DI is rolled against all sacrificed [uncast]
rune magic, not just a single spell.
David Dunham writes:
>So a priest who asks for help is no longer a priest? While it may be a game
>mechanic designed to limit frivolous DIs, it does abstract the "get me out
>of this and I'll make great sacrifices at your altar" request.
Better than a priest with a POW of 2 IMO, or a rune lord with a POW
of 8. In RQ2 a rune lord could lose enough POW to lose his status
quite easily.
It doesn't really abstract it that well: people can always forget about
those great sacrifices when it doesn't suit them, and suffer accordingly
(or not, if their illuminated.)
The current system is more like the god grabbing what he can immediately,
much like a Tapping sorcerer or Vampire. :-)
>On a related topic, I've found that the number one question asked in
>Divination seems to be "What does the Big Nasty want to do." My standard
>answer: gods can't read people's minds.
This is already covered in the write up in Divination at the start of
the Divine magic section: a god can't invade anothers mind (even a priest's)
and can't tell what followers of another god are doing.
Graeme.Lindsell@anu.edu.au
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From: mcarthur@fit.qut.edu.au (Mr Robert McArthur)
Subject: Masters of Luck and Death
Message-ID: <199311030121.LAA28253@fitmail.fit.qut.edu.au>
Date: 3 Nov 93 16:21:50 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2197
A ha! Pounces on a stray comment to find...
>David Cheng *admits*...
>
> I would like to state, clearly and publicly, for the record, that the term
> "God Forgoti" was coined not by me, but by Charles Morehouse, the creator of
> the _Masters of Luck and Death_ game.
Is there *any* information on Masters of Luck + Death (or MoLD :-)? I
believed that nothing had been thought about it... Is there any way to
contact Charles Morehouse?
Robert
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From: sullivam@mlc.lib.mi.us (Mark Sullivan -- Michigan Library Consortium)
Subject: Tribes of Sartar?
Message-ID:
Date: 2 Nov 93 18:40:57 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2198
Hello everyone. I've been "listening" for several days now. Some very
interesting comments. It's nice to see RuneQuest is still alive! Like
some of the others that have written, I have noticed a lack of published
info on Sartar. I'm planning on restarting a campaign and I was wondering
if any of you knows the answer to the following:
1) How many tribes are there in Sartar?
(I seem to recall seeing the number 24 somewhere, but even if so does this
include Ducks, Telmori, or the Northern Sartarites?)
2) What are the names of the tribes?
3) Where are they located?
4) How large (i.e. population) is a small, average, or large size tribe?
I apologize if someone has already covered this in a past posting.
======
Mark
======
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From: C442196@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu (Newton Hughes)
Subject: dragonewt language
Message-ID: <9311030413.AA18486@Sun.COM>
Date: 3 Nov 93 04:04:10 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2199
There's a novel by Harry Harrison called "East of Eden," which I don't
recommend particularly except for an appendix detailing what might as
well be dragonewt speech and writing. Not only is it spoken, hissed,
and whistled, it also includes physical gestures involving the whole
body (that counts the tail, one more reason for humans to find Old
Wyrmish difficult).
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From: s.manning@ic.ac.uk
Subject: Malkioni Trinity?
Message-ID: <9311031415.AA01528@mega>
Date: 3 Nov 93 14:15:31 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2200
Nick, you are currently pushing a "trinitarian" view of the Invisible God(IG),
prompted by recent submissions. In particular, you have written
>Do away with Lords. The Invisible God has three aspects:
>
> Omnipresent - Peasants
> Omnipotent - Knights
> Omniscient - Wizards
>
>Who needs more?
Nice try, but you have forgotten one other important aspect of The IG and that
is that "He" only gives and never takes (see the Prosopaedia), which I guess is
roughly the idea of God's Love in Malkionism. Since the beneficence of lords is
always stressed in the legends of the matter of Britain, I add to the structure
above
"Only giving"(*) - Lords.
There, all four castes.(* This is a clumsy way of putting it, but I feel that
the idea is correct).
Incidently, when you also proposed "was, is and shall be", I don't think that
this is really another religious 3-thing, but just a statement about the basic
relationships along the line of less than (past, was), equality (present, is)
and greater than (future, shall be), because the Malkioni, I'm sure, view time
as being linear. However, we do know that the Malkioni love numerology (see the
Jrusteli Monomyth in GoG) and I suspect that they are pretty hot on geometry,
like all good wizards (see, Pratchett).
However, as for genuine heresies, it is a nice idea that there may well be some
Malkioni crazy enough to fall from the True teaching of the Prophets and fall
into the sin of trinitarianism.
BTW, "orthodox" theology concerning the Trinity, it is believed, arose from the
percieved threat of the Christian gnostics, who were the first true theologians
of Christianity ( E. Pagels, "The Gnostics Gospels"; K. Rudolph, "Gnosis). I
wonder if anything like this has ever happened in Glorantha? Probably.
Joerg, I think that the Aeolian Heresy is great, a wonderful example of a
syncretic Gloranthan religion.
Simon Manning.
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From: watson@computing-science.aberdeen.ac.uk (Colin Watson)
Subject: Rune Sorcery
Message-ID: <9311031624.AA10996@condor>
Date: 3 Nov 93 16:24:55 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2201
Hi folks,
This is a thought which I've been toying with for a while. I need a bit of
advice to perfect it, but here is the plan: I like the idea that sorcerers
should specialize to some extent, but the RQIII sorcery rules don't give much
motivation for specialisation (in fact, quite the opposite, they encourage
sorcerers to concentrate on the good spells and avoid the more esoteric (crap)
spells).
Say you want to play a "Fire Wizard":
With the current rules your skill at form/setting fire is completely independent
from your skill to animate fire, which is in turn completely divorced from
your ability to dominate salamanders. I have a gut feeling that these things
should be linked in some way, but the rules don't really allow for this.
So here is my idea:
(It involves adding another level of abstraction and complexity to Sorcery,
so some people will hate it, but bear with me...)
I want to do away with the idea of having a separate skill for each and every
spell. Instead I propose a skill for each Rune, and then associate one or more
Runes with each spell. The name of the game is RUNEQuest, after all.
To cast a spell (assuming you've gone to the trouble of learning it) you roll
against your skill(s) with the appropriate rune(s).
So, for example, your skill with the Fire rune will help in the casting of any
fire-related spell (but you might also need knowledge of other runes depending
upon the nature of the spell).
Here is my first draft of a table of spell/rune associations.
The question marks (?) indicate runes which I am unsure of. (Notice that
there are rather a lot of these:-)
SORCERY_SPELL____________ ASSOCIATED_RUNE(S)_______________________________
Animate (Substance) Movement + substance rune
(wood=Plant; fire=Fire; metal=Earth? etc)
Cast Back Magic + Disorder?
Damage Boosting Mastery? + Death
Damage Resistance Law? + Stasis?
Diminish (STR, CON,SIZ) Mastery? + Fertility
Diminish (DEX) Mastery? + Movement
Diminish (APP) Mastery? + Communication?
Dominate (Species) Mastery? + species rune
(human,troll,dwarf=Man; elf=Plant
dragonewt=Dragonewt; sheep=Beast
spirit=Spirit; salamander=Fire etc)
Drain Mastery? + Fertility
Enhance (STR, CON, SIZ) Mastery? + Fertility
Enhance (DEX) Mastery? + Movement
Enhance (APP) Mastery? + Communication?
Fly Movement + Air
Form/Set (Substance) Mastery + substance rune
Glow Light (maybe Fire? or Moon?)
Haste Movement
Hinder Stasis
Holdfast Stasis
Mystic Vision Truth + Magic
Neutralise Magic Magic + ? (Mastery again??)
Palsy Stasis
Phantom (Sense) Illusion
(Sense) Projection Truth + Stasis
Protective Circle Law? + Harmony?
Regenerate Fertility
Sense (Substance) Truth + substance rune
Shapechange (Spec to Spec) Harmony + species rune + other species rune
eg. human->troll only needs Harmony+Man runes
human->elf needs Harmony+Man+Plant runes
Skin of Life Harmony + Air
Smother Death + Air
Spell Resistance Law? + Magic
Spirit Resistance Law? + Spirit
Stupefaction Disorder? (for confusion?)
(maybe Harmony for Harmonization?)
Tap (Characteristic) Chaos
Telepathy Communication
Teleport Movement + Stasis (ie. moving without travelling)
Treat wounds Fertility
Venom Death
So, for example, Gandalfus has the following rune-skills:
Fire 80%; Mastery 70%; Movement 60%
If Gandalfus had knowledge of Form/Set Fire he could cast it at 70% (assuming
no further manipulations)
Likewise he uses the same runes (Fire and Mastery) to Dominate Salamander
at 70% (assuming he learns the Dominate Salamander spell).
With Animate Fire he would succeed 60% of the time (taking the lower of his
Fire & Movement skills).
As a bonus, if he learnt Haste he could cast it at 60% (as it depends on
Movement alone).
I guess you get the idea.
A small number of rune-skills allows the casting of a larger number of
*related* spells. This encourages specialisation.
On the other hand, to master a diverse selection of unrelated spells one would
have to master a huge number of rune-skills. (This is maybe a bit hard on
novice sorcerers :-( ).
My problem is I'm not certain that I've understood the meaning of some
of the runes. This is where I need help from all you Runemasters out there.
Notes:
Mastery - I've assumed this also means "Control" which is why I assign it
to both the Enhance & Diminish spells. I'm dubious about using it
for Diminish, but if not Mastery then what?
Law - I've used this to indicate "Protection & Resistance". This is largely
based upon the (fairly) recent discussion about Protective Circle.
Chaos - Tap=Chaos. It's not explicit in the rules, but I think it should be.
This is pure bias on my part ;->.
Truth - I feel confident in assuming this means "Information".
I'm more than happy to hear quibbles about any of the Runic assumptions I've
made. Even if you think the whole idea is completely hat-stand.
BTW I'm not suggesting that we should all go away and convert every sorcerer
in Glorantha using the above suggestions. But it might make an interesting
alternative for parts of the campaign which are not yet developed.
I have not mentioned Ritual spells because they could still use the appropriate
ritual skills. However, I did have another, less robust, idea for converting all
magic skills into rune skills:
Ceremony -> Magic
Enchant -> Stasis?
Summon -> Spirit
Intensity -> Mastery
Range -> Movement?
Duration -> Time/Infinity?
Multispell-> Harmony
But maybe this is taking things a bit too far...
Are there any Sorcery spells which deal with Luck? Or Fate?
___
CW.
---------------------
From: T.S.Baguley@open.ac.uk (Thom Baguley)
Subject: Extension
Message-ID: <9311041441.AA20887@Sun.COM>
Date: 4 Nov 93 14:18:27 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2202
Joerg writes:
>Don't know what the rules say, but I'd rule that Extension can't be
>regained either until expired or dispelled. A while ago in the sorcery
>discussion somebody stated or suggested that all long-duration spells
>lasted only until next holy season, when all but the strongest magic
>expired. One reason more to visit the temple during this time...
I think that was me. I also suggested that Shield 2 with extension 12 is
dispelled as two points of divine magic rather than 14.
Thom
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From: T.S.Baguley@open.ac.uk (Thom Baguley)
Subject: Dwarf Earthsense
Message-ID: <9311041934.AA05429@Sun.COM>
Date: 4 Nov 93 17:12:56 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2203
Newton Hughes writes:
>Certainly d&d set a bad example by giving infravision to everybody and
>his dog, but in the case of dwarves isn't it appropriate?
Wouldn't a furnace effectively blind the dwarf though ...? I would have thought
an electromagnetic sense (or rather its Gloranthan analogue) would be more
appropriate. The dwarf sense would adapted for underground rather than the
completely different ambient signals above ground.
Thom
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From: T.S.Baguley@open.ac.uk (Thom Baguley)
Subject: Temple sizes
Message-ID: <9311041934.AB05429@Sun.COM>
Date: 4 Nov 93 17:22:33 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2204
Another thing that the RQ rules are silent on regarding temple sizes is the
significance of special holy sites. It would seem natural to me that certain
holy sites should be able to furnish powerful magic even if only a few
dedicated initiates were present. An obvious rule mechanic would be to increase
the effectiveness of a site by one step if it is of special mythic
significance.
e.g. Pairing Stone (where the first Wind Lord of Orlanth died) might provide
magic as a medium temple even if only a small temple contigent of initiates
were present.
This begs the question of what happens at sites like The Block (for Storm Bull)
and the Paps (for Ernalda/Eiritha). Presumably there are enough worshippers in
the Paps for a great temple. Perhaps those places exist partially on the
Hero/Plane. Certainly they are mythically beyond mere temples.
Thom