Bell Digest v940819p2

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Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily)
Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Fri, 19 Aug 1994, part 2
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From: ns10005@hermes.cam.ac.uk (N. Smith)
Subject: Bless Crops/Wizards POW/Praying for Spells
Message-ID: 
Date: 18 Aug 94 14:12:06 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5757


Hello people, another ramble:-

klaus, X-RQ-ID: 5722
	'But my point was that this is the only way to do it. Due to the 
death of Genert, Bless Crops spells are (is?) a must for farming in 
Genertela. You need an unrealistic number of acolytes to get the fields 
blessed by personal spells."

Let's quantify this. Quoting in full from RuneQuest Cities (and who am I 
to doubt their facts):-
	'Based on medieval and Renaissance yields, it takes 12,000-20,000 
square maters of farmed land to feed one person. Usually one-third of the 
farming land was left fallow each season, so five square kilometers of 
farm land supported 80-130 people.'

Since 5 sq. km. = 1.93 sq. miles = 1235 acres you need between 9.5 and 
15.4 acres of cultivated and fallow land to feed one person!
With an area of effect of one acre for each spell (see previous posting), 
Bless Crops will have little impact on society as a whole and certainly 
should not be seen as a must.

Also, from the spell description, Bless Crops will only  '...guarantee a 
minimum return of an average year's harvest the following fall.'
Since Genert is dead, the average year's harvest is low and you are thus 
only guaranteed a minimum of a low yield. Perhaps it is only used on cash 
crops {hazia?  :-)  } with small acreages, vegetable gardens and herb 
gardens.

Perhaps Ernaldans cast all their Bless spells on CA herb gardens, in 
return for Resurrections - none of either left for your players, problem 
solved!  :-).



Sandy, X-RQ-ID: 5727
	"Admittedly, POW gain is not as important to wizards as it is  
to priests and shamans."

Why not? Where else does the POW for the creation of sorcery matrices 
come from? Or do they all have either
	1)  Few spells,
or	2)  Little Free INT?


Praying to Regain Spells
If a priest were to 'pray-away' all but 1 of his magic points to regain 
the use of a spell, he would then remain in the Temple for the rest of 
the day - doing chores, teaching the faithful, whatever - until he had 
regained most of his magic points. It's a rough town out there!
I have an idea of why they have to pray, but it has little basis on 
published sources and thus may be considered a tad heretical for the 
Daily   :-

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From: scotty@olivia.cedar-rapids.ia.us (Scott Haney)
Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Wed, 17 Aug 1994, part 2
Message-ID: <9408172025.AA000yk@olivia.cedar-rapids.ia.us>
Date: 17 Aug 94 20:25:17 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5758

TRADE NOTES! TRADE NOTES! TRADE NOTES!

Yes, please, Gerald.



=====================================================================
Scott Haney                        |  I'm not an actor, but I 
                                   |  portrayed one in a play.
scotty@olivia.cedar-rapids.ia.us   |  
olivia!scotty@insosf1.infonet.net  |
=====================================================================

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From: dave_cordes@cl_63smtp_gw.chinalake.navy.mil (Dave Cordes)
Subject: Once again into the Ressure
Message-ID: <9408181546.AA06781@Sun.COM>
Date: 18 Aug 94 00:48:30 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5759

CL QM-SMTP gw                 Once again into the Ressurection Debate
First a little background information:

1.  In the scenario that our group is currently playing we have no
ressurections.  Not because they are disallowed.  But because we have not yet
found a healer capable of performing it.  So we tend to think of death as
permanent.  But that's ok because the three PCs who have perished so far (1
due to stupidity, 1 to bad timing, 1 due to a companions bad aim) were divine
worshipers of some type and we (as characters) knew that they had places to
go.

2.  So far our play style seems to follow the belief that when a divine dies
their spirit will go to their god and serve as (s)he wills.  ie a dead
stormbull's spirit will join stormbull in his eternal battle against chaos. 
A dead CA will join her godess in comforting those in need, etc.  We have
never really discussed this but in three different games with three different
GMs those have been the assumptions we have made.  We also assume that a non
divine (sorcerer type) will wander aimlessly upon death.  A shaman will
either wander aimlessly, or have found a nice place to go, or will join the
spirit totem he follows.

3.  Quoting the Magic Book page 28: "Only Divine Magic can bring back an
adventurer from the dead, a capability which greatly encourages such
characters to learn or convert to that approach to magic".

4.  Quoting from the Magic Book (again) page 36 paragraph on Resurrect: 
"This spell summons the deceased spirit to approach it's former body.  The
caster of the spell can then start spirit combat with the deceased.  If the
initiate or priest succeeds in causing the deceased to lose magic points,
then he can force the spirit back into the body and return to full life.  If
the caster fails the soul is lost to death".

Question(s):

    Why can't a shaman return a deceased spirit to it's body?  If a non
divine character dies due to some cause like being chopped open,  Can the
body be healed back to positive hit points (more than 3).  Then the shaman
can enter the spirit plain.  If (REALLY BIG if) he can find the spirit of the
deceased, can he capture it (through spirit combat) and force it back into
the body?  
    How is this different from what the Divine spell ressurect does?

I would picture the steps to this operation being: 

1. Healthe body to a positive 3 hit points or more.
2. Enter the spirit plan and find the spirit.  This is where the greatest
chance of failure occurs.  If the deceased was a divine worshipper the spirit
has gone to join it's god.  If a non divine it may have wandered off during
the few hours it took the shaman to get there.
4.  Beat the spirit in spirit combat.
5.  Learn the deceased spirit's true name. or store it in your fetch if you
have room.
6.  Return to the mundane plane.
7.  Using summon ghost spell - summon the spirit to you.
8.  Defeat it again in spirit combat.
9.  Force the spirit back into the body, thus bring the person back to life.
10. Make the person pay through the nose for all the trouble you went
through.

Success in all this would rely on being able to: find the spirit, defeat it,
know summon ghost spell, defeat it again.  Failure at anyone of these would
doom the whole enterprise.  For those GMs of you who like ressurections to be
really hard to get.  Just make sure the spirit has wandered away.

Lock and Load

Fire at will



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From: SMITHH@A1.MGH.HARVARD.EDU (Harald Smith 617 726-2172)
Subject: sweet sea, dara happa, and arcos
Message-ID: <01HG20GTXHAURLXNXX@MR.MGH.HARVARD.EDU>
Date: 18 Aug 94 07:37:00 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5760

   Hi all-
   
   - Ian asks about which way the Poralistor runs.
   
   It explicitly says in one document (I think the History of the Lunar 
   Empire 2nd Wane) that the Sweet Sea drains in two directions, both to 
   the White Sea and to the Neleomi Sea.  Which means the Poralistor drains 
   down to the White Sea.
   
   Perhaps the myth would be that when the river gods flooded across the 
   land, Janube and Poralistor met at the Sweet Sea and fell in love.  
   Neither wished to climb higher in the world so they made a home together 
   filled with bounteous and sweet life, thereafter called the Sweet Sea.  
   Even after both answered the call to return to the Oceans following 
   their original paths, they kept their home together.
   
   - Joerg asks about interest in the Dara Happan emperors.
   
   I'm interested in such, either here or privately.  Are you talking pre-
   Khordavu, post-Khordavu, or both?
   
   
   While we're talking about rivers and Dara Happa, has anyone done 
   anything with the other great Pelorian river, the Arcos?  I realized 
   recently that there is a basic similarity of names in this region which 
   suggests a some strength inherent in this area.
   
     Z arkos 	    the Plentonius name for the area.
       Arcos 	    the great river from the Elf Sea.
    Dzhar  st	    typically read as Jarst, the northern realm.
    Dzhar  sting    typically read as Garsting, the southern realm, though
   	     	    I give it a soft instead of hard sounding here.
   (and of course there is also BalaZar)
   
   I might surmise that the original name could be Zarkost.  Perhaps a Dara 
   Happan invasion transformed the name into Dara Zharkost and that 
   degenerated into D'zhar'st or Jarst.
   
   --Harald



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From: sandyp@idcube.idsoftware.com (Sandy Petersen)
Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Thu, 18 Aug 1994
Message-ID: <9408181753.AA28979@idcube.idsoftware.com>
Date: 18 Aug 94 05:53:49 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5761

Dave Dunham:
>Hmm, I consider this an _Advantage_ of the Moose Hsunchen. They're  
>almost the comic relief of my Ralios game.
	I don't mind having the Moose Hsunchen in a game. I just  
don't want them to be the Pralori, which are a large and common  
group. I don't want my comic relief playing a major role in the  
campaign politics (a pivotal role, maybe, but not a major one). The  
Pralori are too widespread to be mooses IMO. 

	Like I said before, an elk is not all that much like a deer. 


Jonas Schiott:
>If you guys had ever seen a real live moose up close, you wouldn't  
>be laughing so much
	I've seen many a live moose up as close as I dared to get.  
Both in the wild and in zoos. Though I wouldn't want to get in a  
fight with a moose, this doesn't free the moose from the stigmata of  
a funny-looking animal. Mooses look goofy, mooses sound goofy (lives  
there a teenage American male who hasn't bellered out the moose  
mating call at least once?), and every once in a while a lonely bull  
moose in Maine or somewhere gets romantic and starts chasing and  
trying desperately to mate with the local cows (who, of course, want  
nothing to do with him). It's really quite heartbreaking, plus the  
cows lose weight with all that running around. 

	I DEMAND Moose Hsunchen in my campaign. I just don't want 'em  
to be the Pralori. Just as I would never have an entire Duck Kingdom  
in a major important place in my campaign. 


Harald Smith:
>Now that we have achieved the switch of Peter Whitelaw for Peter 

>Metcalfe, we should anticipate the imminent demise ofsome aspect of  
>the Daily. 

	I think we should move on to the next step, since our  
experiment has been so successful. It's time to bring about the  
interchange of David Cake with David Hall. This way, we'll get to  
have TotRM published in AMERICA! Unless. er, Mr. Cake lives in  
England (or somewhere worse). I guess I'll have to check up on that  
before we get too carried away. 

	And then we can create our Ultimate Exchange -- switching  
Scotland for Sartar. This has the exceedingly benign and much-hoped  
for result of forcing Sam Phillips AND Alex Ferguson into becoming  
NPCs in our Dragon Pass campaigns. 

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

From: rebecca_glenn@fmc.com
Subject: runequest line
Message-ID: <9407187772.AA777234504@ccgate.fmc.com>
Date: 18 Aug 94 16:28:24 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5762


subscribe runequest-request rebecca glenn

I have a crazy game master running glorantha in San Jose and I thought I'd find 
out what other people think of it.

rlg
the reaper


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From: DevinC@aol.com
Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Thu, 18 Aug 1994, part 1
Message-ID: <9408181522.tn85759@aol.com>
Date: 18 Aug 94 19:22:26 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5763

Devin Cutler here:

Tim asks:

" If all the waters of the world run towards
Magasta's pool, where does the water that ends up in the White Sea go to? (As
it is now unconnected to the central oceans, thanks to Valinds Galcier)""

Could it be that the water from the White Sea does go to Magasta's pool by
flowing through Valind's Glacier? Id est, the water from the sea flows into
the northern edge of the glacier, where it freezes. Via Glaciation it slowly
flows into warmer climes where it then melts and empties into an ocean or as
rivers which wend their way to the Homeward Ocean (eventually).

Jon writes:

"Divine Magic is cast by the Gods, not the mortals, who are merely the
means by which the Gods can touch the Mundane plane.  That's why it's
called _Divine_ Magic.  Someone calling for (I won't say "casting") DM
may use a mental frame to form the request - indeed, they must, in
order to make the appeal that quickly - but that's a very different
thing from forming a matrix in their own mind, and casting Gods' POW
through it, essentially using Spirit Magic methods with Gods' power."

Don't forget, Jon, that in RQ3, Divine Magic requires more than in RQ2. It is
cast in Dex SR (implying more than just a mental process) and it states that
hands must be free, implying that in RQ3 Divine Magic is, in one form or
another, cast.

I have always viewed Divine Magic as a mini-ritual, which occurs very
quickly, and which gains the divine attention necessary to cast the spell (or
the divine flinch, whatever).

Klaus writes:

"A faster war would be less messy. Most damage is done either deliberately,
to starve your opponent, or by looting/foraging. Getting it over with
faster would mean less damage. Battlefields might get more damaged, but
they are an infinitisimal part of the countryside.

Klaus O K"

It really depends on other variables, as a faster war can also catch
civilians unawares, before they can pack up and move their livestock, et al.

Tim Minas writes:

"On Truestones: Yeuk! I don't like the proposal that they hold Rune Power
points at all! After all, surely half the tremendous power of Truestone is
the
fact that they hold spells which are otherwise unavailable to you, if you
defeat an enemy who had a piece. If all it holds is RPP, then it's pretty
useless to you. (No more stealing Trollish Truestone with Blinding etc in for
a special quest etc)"

Me too! Can someone tell me what the benefit is of having your RPP sucked
into a Truestone? Or what is the benefit of placing your own RPP into a
Truestone to recharge it? What does it matter where the RPP resides, whether
in Truestone or body? With a MP storage crystal, the defining usefulness is
the fact that you get to regenerate those MP, providing one with a net total
greater than otherwise possible. Unless I misunderstand the RPP Truestone
concept, this does not seem to be the case with that mechanism.

Regards,

Devin Cutler
devinc@aol.com


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

From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson)
Subject: Greg gregs Greg.
Message-ID: <9408182206.AA18140@hawaii.dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: 18 Aug 94 22:06:41 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5764


Eric Rowe metagregs Sandy, for paragregging Joerg in stating that the
Only Old One was an office, and not a single or reincarnating demigod:
> Guess Greg forgot. I asked him today (for the Broken Council LARP) and
> Greg said the OOO was not an office.

Nah, Greg is just too good at Seeing Both Sides to every question, him
being a such good Arkati [*].  When Greg descibes himself as a Middle of
the Road Guy, you didn't realise he was talking about the Left and Right
hand paths, did you all?

[*]  In the 23rd sense of the word.

Alex.

[%%error:: included text shorter than message citing included text.  Sense
of proportion dumped]

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

From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson)
Subject: Gods and Guests
Message-ID: <9408182216.AA18157@hawaii.dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: 18 Aug 94 22:16:14 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5765


RF03:
> 	So, barring the founder of a city attaining God-hood, how
> does a city go about getting its own patron diety?

In some cases there may be a pre-existing spirit to be readily adopted
(as with Glamour, or New Pavis), but otherwise, rather than conducting
interviews on the spirit plane, the city god/spirit will tend to Emerge,
in the fullness of time, either as a cult of the founder, or other
historical figure, or as a kind of "wyter" of the city.

> 	BTW, noting that some people are offended by the term "guestette",
> might I suggest that at future cons they be referred to as "guestlings",
> or (in keeping with Gloranthan tradition) "guestkin"?

Guestlets?  Guesty-poos?


Alex.

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

From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson)
Subject: Rune Magic.
Message-ID: <9408190432.AA19079@hawaii.dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: 19 Aug 94 04:32:19 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5766


Klaus O K:
> But my point was that this is the only way to do it. Due to the death of
> Genert, Bless Crops spells are (is?) a must for farming in Genertela.
> You need an unrealistic number of acolytes to get the fields blessed
> by personal spells.

Last I heard, this idea, that Bless Crops is De Rigeur was being touted
by Joerg, as a Forcing Argument for _his_ pet theories, about how everyone
in sight should be a pantheon initiate and get a reusable Bless Crops.
Wanna fight to the death for it? ;-)

Lewis:
> Anyone initiated into the worship of a god may perform a limited DI for 
> the effects of one of the god's divine magic spells.  This form of DI is 
> much more likely to work as it is virtualy indistinguishable from the 
> normal casting of divine magic so the god does it on a routine basis.  

I definitely favour this idea, hence my vague allusions to such in my RPT
message.  However, since this is actually yet more flexible (though less
reliable) than Rune Power, I'm not sure how things'll come out in the game-
balance wash.

> The chance of the effect is POW * 3 for initiates, *4 for acolytes and *5 for 
> rune levels.  The cost is the normal cost in POW for the spell.  However, 
> the spell is cast on a one-use basis (non-reusable spells cost double!).  

This could get a bit nasty; anyone fancing tangling with a Humakti under
these rules?  I'd considered something like this approach myself, but I'm
leery of introducing yet a _third_ system for RM/DI: ideally, I'd like a
more unified approach to the two not-so-distinct phenomena.

Joerg and I were batting around some such ideas, but I don't think either of
us had convinced ourselves, much less the other.  In RQ:AiG, btw, this was
to be the _only_ form of DI available...  (in one draft, at least).

On a more mundane note, I'd say one-use spells should cost at least
_treble_ the points as reusable spells; I'm also not quite clear on
what's intended here wrt initiates and priests using the same spell: do
they pay the same cost in POW?  Or can initiates only use "reusable"
spells?  (And pay double POW for those?)

> From: Argrath@aol.com
> Re: Alex's Dave-and-Nick-borrowed Rune Power system

> Very much liked the DI rules, though perhaps only
> priests get to count all their power pool toward the chance. 
> Here are some variations I have been thinking about, but hadn't
> gotten written up yet:

Well, I hadn't worked out any of those details to my satisfaction, hence
my masterful vagueness.  I was thinking of a tapered scale of bonuses for
everyone, but bunging in a bonus for >Initiate-levels.  My real niggles
were working out the POW loss in a way I liked...

I also intended to incorporate religious traits into the system: David D.,
how do you do DI in Pendragon Pass?

Alex.

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

From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson)
Subject: Sandy, and Gregging.
Message-ID: <9408190529.AA19125@hawaii.dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: 19 Aug 94 05:29:24 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5767


Sandy:
> Source Runes" once more. Deities who are an Origin, and have their  
> Rune doubled, are NOT the original source of that Rune. Deities who  
> are an Origin, and have their Rune along with an infinity Rune ARE  
> the original source of that Rune.

As an en passant blow in my continuing suspicion that the \infty rune
_really_ means "member of the Celestial Court", I postulate that the latter
property would be much more readily determined RuneQuest Sight than the
former.  Avoids picky questions about whther certain "original owners"
were Real Gods, Philopsophical Constructs, Or What, at least.

> The other  
> disadvantages of having a Moose tribe, such as making the players  
> crack up, I feel to outweigh the advantages. 

Isn't this a Good Thing in MGF terms?

> Tim Minas
> >Someone asked at Convulsion what would happen if you killed all the  
> >Hyenas in the wastes, would Genert come back? Greg said, yes,  
> >probably.
> 	On the other hand, don't forget WHY Genert had Hyena eat him.  
> I see no reason to suppose that his original reasoning isn't still  
> valid, in which case the resurrection of Genert could lead to  
> Genert's death and the takeover of a chaotic land-god.

I think that Greg actually said that if you assembled all Genert's bits,
he _might_ then be recreatable, not that a pile of hyena would instantly
reform into the god.  I'd imagine that you have to dissect all the hyena
up to get the Genert bits, stitch 'em all together, cast Heal 2,000,000,
and then Ressurection MMM.  Throw in a world-shattering heroquest for good
luck.

> I said:
> >> But in any case, if the wizard leads services for the  
> >> Invisible God, I'd give him a POW gain roll every Sacred Time.
> Alex wonders:
> >Hrm.  Why?

> 	Here am my reasons. Firstly, it seems Bad to force wizards to  
> have to adventure or summon up evil spirits in order to get POW gain  
> rolls.

Probably, but then, they don't really need 'em, as you pointed out.  If they
have a regular supply, they're only going to go pump out lots oa magical
enchantments...

> Secondly, whatever it is that gives Priests a  
> POW gain roll should work via the Invisible God as well.

Hardly follows.  Immanent vs. transcendental, that kinda guff.  After all,
the IG worship ceremony doesn't (obviously) _contact_ the IG...

> Heck,  
> probably organized worship of ANYTHING that really exists on another  
> plane of existence will get you a POW gain roll as your soul strives  
> to breach the invisible veil between the realms. 

How uplifting. ;-)  Now, if you'd said "Well, he shovels lots of mps
somewhere, just like a Priest does", I might have believed you... ;-)

Michael C. Morrison:
> Alex asks for a definition of greg (the noun form).  How's this?:

>            2b. a unit of measure that describes how much has been
>            written by Greg Stafford about a particular topic; can be
>            measured in words, pages, or multiples of either.

This is roughly the sense I meant, though as a SI unit, it leaves something
to be desired.  I still don't know how I'm going to calibrate my maps marked
in Isogregs...

> greg (adj) - correct, according to published and unpublished writings
>              of Greg Stafford.

> greg (adv) - in a correct manner, according to published and unpublished
>              writings of Greg Stafford.

Surely both "Gregly".

Alex.