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, 24 Jun 1994, part 2
Sender: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM
Content-Return: Prohibited
Precedence: junk
---------------------
From: DevinC@aol.com
Subject: Spirits of Prax (Part 2)
Message-ID: <9406232106.tn99964@aol.com>
Date: 24 Jun 94 01:06:39 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4793
Devin Cutler here:
Since I didn't hear anything bad about my previous posting (nor anything
good....oh well), here are some more Spirits from Nomad Gods:
Mistress Clam:
Also known as Molanni, this is the Mistress of the Calm Sky, who appears
cloaked in wispy but shadowing clouds decorating her benign appearance. Her
influence calms even the dry chapparal, making life possible where she rests.
Mistress Calm may only be contacted by by shamans during a period of no wind.
The shaman must paint Stasis runes and symbols all over his body, such paint
to be made from a mixture of mud, stone, and herd beast blood (not enough to
harm a herd beast). He must then meditate in almost complete silence under a
lean-to made of herd beast skins with bone frames, upon which has been dyed
Stasis Runes and Feritlity Runes. From this lean-to, the shaman then
discorporates and contacts Mistress Calm.
Mistress Calm must be approached, on the spirit plane, slowly and reverently,
and the shaman must speak to her in a whisper. He asks the Mistress for her
blessing and sacrifices 1 POW to her to link his soul to her.
Mistress Calm teaches the divine spell of Decrease Wind (as per Orlanth Cult)
Rainbow Girl:
Rainbow Girl is the great messenger between the gods and men. She first
brought words of peace and co-operation from the Sea Gods to the Air Gods,
later to Earth and to Men. She is a well-known figure among those who can
contact the Spirits of Prax.
Rainbow Girl may only be contacted during a time when a Rainbow appears in
the sky. The shaman must then colour himself in paints of Red, Orange,
Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet and discorporate to seek her aid.
Non-shamans may also contact her during a Rainbow by praying to the Rainbow,
sacrificing 1 MP to the Rainbow Girl, and making a POW x1% roll. If contact
is established in either of the above ways, the supplicant must then
sacrifice 1 POW to establish the link between mortal and spirit.
Rainbow Girl requires those who have received her blessings to sacrifice 1 MP
to her each day that they see a Rainbow.
Rainbow Girl acts as an intermediary between the gods and men. In this
capacity, she provides the ritual divine magic of Divination to those
supplicants who do not have access to that spell through their own cults
(e.g. Waha and Eiritha).
Divine Magic:
Rainbow Intervention
ritual Ceremony, stackable, one-use
1 point
This ceremony is performed well in advance of when it is needed. In many
respects it performs as Priestly DI did in RQ2. It invokes the Rainbow Girl
and asks that, whenever the supplicant needs aid from his god, that the
Rainbow Girl will take the message to the god personally and plead the supplic
ant's case.
For each point of Rainbow Intervention stacked, the supplicant may call upon
his god for DI, even if he has just previously called for DI using normal
means. All stacked points of Rainbow Intervention must be used up at once.
Each point of the spell provides a 10% chance for successful DI, but a 96-00
always fails.
If a supplicant does not worship a god capable of DIing, or if the supplicant
wants to gain a DI from a god different than the one he worships, then the DI
chance is lowered to 5% per point. In this case, success indicates that
Rainbow Girl was able to plead her case before that other god.
Even if a Rainbow Girl DI attempt fails, all stacked points are used up.
Rainbow Girl Intervention can never be used to ask for Intervention that will
harm others. For example, a shaman could ask the Rainbow Girl to take a
request for help to Yelm, and Yelm might respond by sending a Shield spell.
In this case, Yelm would not send a spell such as Truespear or Sunspear, etc.
If a supplicant asks Rainbow Girl to speak to a god opposed to the supplicant
or his cult, then the chances of success should be reduced at the GM's
discretion. For example, a Shaman of Orlanth asking for aid from the Seven
Mothers should be at 1% per point of the spell at most.
The White Princess:
This Spirit is often called the most beautiful woman in Prax. She is tall and
stately, cool and aloof, striding through the desolation of Prax in her long
sparkling cloak and attended by a dozen small Snow Spirits. Her cool beauty
is enough to bring a little winter even to Prax. Her winter neutralizes the
barren chaparral, making her a fertile and wondrous delight to be close to.
The White Princess may only be contacted in Dark Season on Freezeday. The
shaman wishing to contact her must do so at night while enclosed in some sort
of bag or shelter that completely blocks out all light from the moon and the
stars (as well as from amnmade sources). In this darkness, the shaman
discorporates and seeks out the White Princess.
She is easy to find, as the shaman merely follows the cool breezes of the
spirit plain (spelling intentional) until he espies her radiant beauty. He
must then sacrifice 1 POW to her as a link between his soul and her power.
Non-Shamans must seek out the White Princess on the physical plain, always
heading for the place from whence the colling breezes come. Since she moves
around a lot, she is an elusive target, but some do find her and witness her
beauty.
Any male who espies her oon the physical plane must roll under his POW x5% or
become so enraptured of her beauty that he follows the Princess around for
many days at a time. Each day, a POW x5% roll may be made to break the spell
of her cool beauty. Otherwise, even if she is out of sight, the supplicant
will follow her throughout Prax.
Whether enamoured or not, the supplicant may sacrifice 1 POW to the Princess
and become linked to her.
Divine Magic:
Cool Area
ritual Ceremony, stackable, reusable
1 point
This ritual is performed each week on Freezeday. If successful, the average
temperature in a 100m radius is reduced by 5 degrees. Additional points of
this spell will not further lower the tmperature, but will increase the
radius by another 100m. This means that each point of the spell covers more
surface area than the preceding point.
The effects of this spell are such that the coolness of the area, assuming
most weekly ceremony rolls are made, will promote growth and comfort amongst
the clan. It is up to the GM to determine the exact effects, but certainly
it should make herd beasts more productive, fight fatigue during Fire Season,
make fodder more available in a given area, etc. An average increase in yield
of 5%-10% would not be unreasonable for a Cool Area spell that worked
throughout the year and covered the entire Clan Area.
Note that the centre of this spell can be cast upon a piece of ground or,
more often, Praxian Nomads will cast it upon the tent pole of the Chieftan,
so that the spell travels with them when they make the long, arduous journeys
through the more barren parts of Prax.
Hyena:
Hyena is a Praxian incarnation of the Trickster, who in his Swallow aspect,
performed a service for the dying Genert.
Hyena is an odd creature. It is said that when the god Genert learned of his
upcoming death, he created Hyena to devour the immortal body so that it would
not fall into the maws of chaos. This strange and somewhat disgusting fate is
held responsible for the creature's odd behavior. The Hyena is famous for
sitting about and telling lewd jokes all day, hypnotising his audience with
his power, entertaining them at the expense of all else.
A shaman may contact Hyena by butchering a herd beast (preferrably from
another tribe), eating his fill of the beast, and meditating over the
remains. A POW x3% roll is then necessary to find Hyena.
A non-shaman must give over a herd beast to wild hyenas. The herd beast's
carcass must be covered with Beast and Disorder Runes and Symbols in order to
be worthy as an offering. For each herd beast given over to hyenas within a
single year, allow a 2% cumulative chance that Hyena will come. Thus, a
person who gives 5 herd beasts will have around a 30% chance of contacting
Hyena.
Once Hyena comes, the supplicant must engage in a contest of Riddles. This can
be played out or abstracted as an INT versus INT roll on the resistance
table. Hyena's INT is 18. Failure means that no further attempts to contact
Hyena may be made for that Season. If Hyena is bested, then the supplicant
must sacrifice 1 POW in order to receive his gifts.
Anyone receiving Hyena's gifts is expected to refrain from harming hyenas and
to leave them some food if such can be spared.
Hyena gives the divine Trickster spells of Swallow and Group Laughter
Brother Dog:
Sometimes claimed to be the first of man's friends, Brother Dog has always
been noted for his loyalty and, especially, for his effectiveness against
other beast-kind.
One who has never intentionally harmed a dog may attempt to contact Brother
Dog. Since he is a friendly spirit and loyal to man, he is always hovering
near men and is easily contacted. Shamans contacting Brother Dog must give
him 1 POW to link their soul to his power.
Non-Shamans can contact Brother Dog by taking a dog and becoming its master.
If he has been a good master to the Dog for a year or more, he may ask the
dog to fetch the spirit of Brother Dog. Brother Dog, being loyal, will
usually come, and by sacrificing 1 POW to him, he may be worshipped.
Divine Magic:
Speak with Dogs
caster, temporal, non-stackable, reusable
1 point
This spell allows the caster to speak to dogs. Such speaking sounds like a
series of yaps, growls, and barks to outside observers. The spell does not
impart any extra intelligence to the dogs, who will always speak from their
own, unique point of view.
Catch Scent
caster, temporal, stackable, reusable
1 point
This spell allows the caster to Track by scent. This adds 25% to the Track
skill of the caster, and each point stacked thereafter adds another 25%. Of
course, the trail must be made by one who has a scent, and the caster must
have an olfactory sense. Ability can be raised over 100%, since many
modifiers to Tracking often penalize the skill severely.
Praxian Altars:
Many of the altars in Prax are attuned or sympathetic to certain of these
spirits, who tend to linger around these areas or at least to focus a part of
their awareness upon such places. These altars would allow bonuses to the
chances of contacting these beings. They might also allow powerful shamans to
call up the beings themselves! Exact effacts of these altars are left to
another time.
Regaining Gifts:
Most of these divine magics are regained in the normal manner, except that
the shaman or supplicant merely need meditate for a day per point of divine
magic in order to regain the spell. Anywhere in Prax is sufficient to do so.
Outside of Prax, such divine magic cannot be regained, unless a spirit is
specifically known to have influence outside of Prax (e.g. Brother Dog spells
could probably be regained in Balazar and the Elder Wilds).
Regards,
Devin Cutler
devinc@aol.com
---------------------
From: DevinC@aol.com
Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Thu, 23 Jun 1994, part 2
Message-ID: <9406230400.tn69301@aol.com>
Date: 23 Jun 94 08:00:26 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4760
Devin Cutler here:
Cullen writes:
" If he is incapable of critical think-
ing (or at the very least has been passively discouraged from trying it)
then he will not see any inconsistency or unlikelihood to people being
born in impossible ways nor of people performing impossible acts."
He still can rely on empirical evidence though, which doesn't require
critical thinking. If stupid peasant #1 consistently sees with his own eyes
miracles being performed in Glorantha, and stupid peasant #2 only hears about
them at Church or in the tavern or while working the fields, then stupid
peasant #1 is going to be much more well-grounded in his beliefs.
"Well, I don't think you CAN be more devoted than a fairly large number
of people were during the ancient/medieval period. They seem rather
fanatical."
Well, I think you can. Where does that leave us?
"But the existence of the gods isn't as undisputed as in medieval times.
Explanations for how it 'appears' that the gods exist but in fact they
don't (or aren't worthy of worship) are common in the areas adjoining
the west. Now if it was so abundantly clear as to be undeniable that
these are gods then how do you explain the west?
Meanwhile in medieval europe few claims that God doesn't exist can be
found. And the average peasant isn't likely to hear of them, the few
atheists that existed were academics. Most of the arguments were over
what exactly the true form of God was, not over whether he existed.
That was taken as a given by (almost) everybody. Many of those who had
good critical faculties had a marked aversion to examining religion with
this regard."
Why do you restrict your Terran example to Medieval Europe and then expand my
Gloranthan example to cover all of Genertela (i.e. the West, which I keep
maintaining is a different sort of beast from Theistic Sartar, etal?
To go with your example,
First, I really have a hard time swallowing any claims that Theistic
Sartarites do not know the gods exist and do not know that magic exists. The
great weight of evidence points against you. In fact, I consider this point
pretty much a priori in my view.
Second, your example about Medieval Europe is flawed. Perhaps all of Medieval
Europe worshipped the same "God", as did , arguably, Jews and Muslims in
Africa and the Middle East. But if one were to go to North America, Japan,
China, Africa, Australia, or India (which possessed far more population than
did M. Europe), you WOULD find people who, while worshipping other gods,
would call the M. Europe God "bunk".
Nick writes to Joerg:
"Don't tell me you agree with Devin's position that
ancient people aren't really much different than people today?"
That would be shocking, no? :-)
Simon asks about whether the Hyenas have an over-spirit.
Yes, they do. He is called Hyena and was described and represented by a
counter in the Nomad Gods game. I will be providing a writeup of him in my
next posting of Spirits of Prax tomorrow. Nomad Gods says that he obeyed
Genert's dying wish and ate the god's body so that it would not become
corrupted by the chaos that had slain it (thus hyenas' tendency to eat
carrion (although I believe modern biologists suggest that they do this far
less than was previously believed)). Since then, Hyena has been something of
a Trickster figure, telling jokes and hypnotizing audiences with his stories
so that they forget everything else.
BTW, in the Nomad Gods game the Hyena counter disrupts other counters
(presumably through this joke telling and prank playing).
Regards,
Devin Cutler
devinc@aol.com
---------------------
From: MAB@SAVAX750.RUTHERFORD.AC.UK (Mystic Musk Ox)
Subject: DI
Message-ID: <9406230814.AA01585@Sun.COM>
Date: 23 Jun 94 08:11:00 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4761
----------------------------------------------------------------------
>I have mentioned this before in the RQ4 playtest list, but I think it
>is not entirely inappropriate here on the Daily. I think that the RQ
>standard mechanism for divine intervention, rolling d100 (d10) under
>I prefer a rule where really devout worshippers, priests, rune lords
>and exceptional initiates can get divine favours. If you have done
>something really important for the cult you get one divine favour
>To use this it is of course necessary to decide what kind of actions
>merit divne favours. It shouldn't be too difficult to make up guide-
Have you tried the old StormBringer Elan system? That works quite
well...
Mark Buckley
---------------------
From: lindsell@rschp1.anu.edu.au (Graeme Lindsell)
Subject: Resurrecting the Resurrection debate, and Western women
Message-ID: <9406230839.AA05736@Sun.COM>
Date: 23 Jun 94 23:37:08 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4762
Devin Cutler:
>You will
>have to somehow explain to me how, in a Glorantha where Chalanna Arroy
>has a reusable Resurrection, charges only what the recipient can afford
>(donations actually), and is willing to heal almost anyone, Resurrection
>is not widely available?
There was a fairly extended argument on the matter some months back:
the sides seemed to be
i) Resurrection as presented in the game is a remnant from the early
(ie D&D) days of the hobby, when life and death were cheap. It should
either be removed (my attitude) or made a great deal more difficult
(many other people).
ii) Though reusable resurrection exists, the Chalana Arroy use the
vast majority on child deaths, and PC's access to them is severely
limited, if not impossible, at the GM's discretion. (Basically, Sandy
Petersen's argument).
iii) Glorantha does have easily accessible resurrection for adults,
as the game mechanics say, and material for the world should be written
on this basis. (I think someone took this stand).
Personally, my opinion is that if you want to resurrect someone, go
and reenact the Lightbringers Quest. Should work.
Sandy Petersen writes:
>>Hrestoli might or might not have female magicians, warriors, and
>>rulers.It's not established.
> I want them to.
I checked out the (minimal) material on the Western status of women
again last night, and noticed it said that men take the "highest
church offices", not "all church offices", which does imply there
are female wizards (enchantresses/nuns whatever you like) in the Rokari
church. Unless the Hrestoli attitudes on the matter are different,
so should the Hrestoli. So there you are.
I still find the idea of female Western knights far fetched. Note:
not that there are women who fight, but that there are any chivalric
orders specifically for them. I supect there are as many female rulers
and warriors in Seshnela as there were in 10th century England (ie a
very few, and more noblewomen than female warriors)
--
Graeme Lindsell a.k.a lindsell@rschp1.anu.edu.au
Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University, Canberra.
"I was 17 miles from Greybridge before I was caught by the school leopard"
Ripping Yarns - Tomkinson's Schooldays.
---------------------
From: malcolm@num-alg-grp.co.uk (Malcolm Cohen)
Subject: E Prime, or Chaos is not evil
Message-ID: <521.199406230934@mars.nag.co.uk>
Date: 23 Jun 94 09:34:20 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4763
David Gadbois said:
> There really are some fringers who claim to speak only E Prime. For
> them, they could only say something like "Chaos has some of the same
> quailities that evil has." This is much weaker than the original, and
Actually "evil" in "chaos is evil" is like "hot" in "this water is hot", i.e.
it is a quality, so you end up with "Chaos has the quality of evilness" which is
pretty much the same as the original.
> my speculation about New Pelorian Newspeak is meant
> as a satire of linguistic control
Fine, but since NewSpeak is its own satire it seems a trifle unnecessary to
inflict it on Glorantha - unless we are trying to paint the Red Empire in
unrelieved black. Indeed, one of the attractive things about G back in RQ2 was
the ambiguity of the struggle between the barbarians and the empire; I think it
is a shame that the barbarians now all wear white hats and the empire black.
--
...........................Malcolm Cohen, NAG Ltd., Oxford, U.K.
(malcolm@nag.co.uk)
---------------------
From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner)
Subject: Sog city in the nearer future
Message-ID:
Date: 23 Jun 94 11:04:29 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4764
Graeme Lindsell
> Of course, the renegade Malkionist Sartar managed to persuade the
> inhabitants of Dragon Pass otherwise, via his Heroquests, and the
> "invasion" is just the northernists reclaiming what was always theirs.
> [Hmmm, nice theory, perhaps I should publish]
Hey, the Malkionist Sartar is copyrighted by me!
> Acutally, I'd tend to play the war in Fronela as is implied in the
> Fronela chapter of G:G Book2 ie a massive assault on Loskalm, with
> Lord Death on a Horse needing to hire hordes of mercenaries but still
> leaving the matter in doubt. I agree with what MOB said on the subject,
> that the north of Loskalm will likely be spared most to the carnage,
> as the direction of the Warlords attack would be towards the South,
> through Junora. If Sog falls, I suspect the Waertegi will try to take
> it and their drydocks back later, though.
King of Sartar tells us (in the grazer section of CHDP) that the Grazer
chieftain Karndaro the Leaper, who came into power after the dragon
devoured the Sartar temple of the Reaching Moon, but whose reign ended
before Dwernapple, had visited Sog once and talked to a Waertagi admiral.
(KoS p.116)
While the text says nothing about the rulers of the surrounding lands,
it seems the Waertagi had taken control of the city at this time, less
than 17 years to the future from 1621's now.
Karndaro's travel was an exotic one, though - on p.227 it is stated
that his steed carried him from mountaintop to mountaintop to the dwarf
city of Nida (and probably on to Sog).
> The write-up of Harrek also implies that the Kingdom of War is
> basically Lord Death on a Horse's effort; that if he died, so would
> the KoW. Loskalm on the other hand would seem to be able to replace a
> leader at pretty short notice.
You never know if there isn't someone waiting in the shadow to take
over. When Philip of Macedon and Friedrich-Wilhelm of Prussia died,
everyone expected a period of weakness to follow. The rest is history.
--
-- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de