Bell Digest v941108p1

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Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Tue, 08 Nov 1994, part 1
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X-RQ-ID: Intro

This is the RuneQuest Daily Bulletin, a mailing list on
the subjects of Avalon Hill's RPG and Greg Stafford's 
world of Glorantha.  It is sent out once per day in digest
format.

More details on the RuneQuest Daily and Digest can be found
after the last message in this digest.

X-RQ-ID: index

6864: joe = (Joerg Baumgartner)
 - Similar gods
6865: dave_cordes = (Dave Cordes)
 - Shamans, Fetchs, and Spirit
6866: alex = (Alex Ferguson)
 - Spirit taxonomy
6867: alex = (Alex Ferguson)
 - Fetches, spirits, familiars.
6870: henkl = (Henk Langeveld - Sun Nederland)
 - Re: Pamaltela, Gods, and worshippers

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From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner)
Subject: Similar gods
Message-ID: 
Date: 7 Nov 94 09:40:22 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6864

The Elmal/Yelmalio problem has reopened the gods' identity discussion. 
Fine with me. 

Boris mentions different myths for the Colymar and the Lismelder, so 
that a Colymar heroquester would have difficulties to change not only 
his own tribe's myths, but the neighbouring tribe's myths as well.

My answer is both yes and no. Sartar is a very complicated region, 
because it has been colonialized quite recently (about 300 years ago) 
by a mixture of clans. Those of the settlers who came for religious or 
political reasons came because they wanted to change their life from 
that accepted at home. Unless there was a period of force-converting 
Orlanthi to Western ways or not-so-subtle undermining of Orlanthi 
custom by western influences when Belintar had come to power, I believe 
most fled because they resisted the dominance of the city-dwellers, and 
to escape the taxes introduced by the Pharaoh.

The Colymar are even more complicated with their mixture of Esrolian, 
first wave Heortlander and second wave Heortlander clans. The mythical 
identity of the Sartarites seems to be the clan rather than the tribe, 
since the Lunars managed to transfer clans from the Colymar to the 
Malani without serious trouble, as much as the Colymar had little 
mythical problems to adopt other clans or even tribes after the 
Zarran etc. wars. There is the short passage in KoS about wyters...


Gods as not so personal forces on Glorantha are a well known 
phenomenon. Between Nomad Gods and Cults of Prax we find that each 
Praxian tribe has its own version of Waha/Storm Bull (the Founder) 
and Eiritha (the Protectress, e.g. Sable-Eiritha), which are quite 
different from the next tribe's versions. Yet in both cases they 
recognize a common form of these deities as a spirit residing at the 
Paps (Waha can even be summoned).

I find it likely that each Orlanthi clan has its own common picture 
of the main deities. In the case of Ernalda this can lead to confusion 
with the goddess of the land (like in David Dunham's East Ralios).

Great Temples to Orlanth still get the support from all neighbouring 
clans, tribes and temples, again like the Paps in Prax. Maybe this is 
the reason why the common spells are available only at such holy places 
- the god becomes unpersonal enough to be identified with such 
primordial powers.

-- 
--  Joerg Baumgartner   joe@sartar.toppoint.de

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From: dave_cordes@cl_63smtp_gw.chinalake.navy.mil (Dave Cordes)
Subject: Shamans, Fetchs, and Spirit
Message-ID: <9411071752.AA28486@Sun.COM>
Date: 7 Nov 94 02:48:10 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6865

CL QM-SMTP gw                 Shamans, Fetchs, and Spirits
David Dunham X-RQ-ID: 6851 on 4 Nov 94

>>The logic for having a fetch cast a visability on itself would allow the
>>fetch and the shaman to interact together on the material plane.

>No, that's logic for why you WANT fetches to be able to independently cast
>spells while the shaman is corporate; I want to know what passage in the
>rules logically implies that they can.

You are exactly right.  We were allowing fetches to cast visability on
themselves so they could interact with their shamans, because that's the way
we WANTED it to work.  We were not aware of any rules that prohibited it.
(Ignorance is Bliss)

But now that you have pointed out to us that the rules don't allow fetches to
cast spells while the shaman is corparate. (Spoil Sport)  We will probably
(pending GM stamp of approval) disallow it in the future.  This change in the
way we play the game will not effect our game however.  In our current
scenarios we have never had the need nor opportunity for a fetch to cast a
spell while the shaman was still on the material plane.  But our GM and I had
discussed the possiblity.

So now that David Dunham has succeeded in making things difficult for my
shaman, again, or still. I've one more point to address.  

According to David Dunham:

>David Cordes gives a detailed description of how shamans work, which is
>pretty close to how I run it. The big difference is that we always thought
>that spirits could be released by the fetch into the mundane plane.
>(Thinking about it after your essay, it might take a casting [by the
>shaman, not the fetch] of Visibility, which could be done on the spirit
>while captured by the fetch.)

According to our GM a shaman cannot directly effect a spirit that is on the
spirit plane unless he discorporates and goes there (Except for summon
spells).  So you still will not be able to cast visability on a spirit that
is being held by your fetch. The only way to get a spirit from your fetch to 
the material plane (while the shaman is corparate) is to summon it using the
appropriate spell and ritual ceremony.

Personally I prefer to think of the bond between shaman and fetch as a
conduit through which the shaman can cast spells.  This way you could use the
Visability spell to bring a captured spirit from the spirit plane to the
material plane.  

If this is how it works?  When the spirit arrives is it still under the
control of the shaman and fetch?  Can the shaman simply order it to do it's
one task, or does it have to be battled or controlled before it can be put to
work?

If the bond between shaman and fetch is a conduit that the shaman can cast
spell through.  If the shaman wanted the spirit for more than one task, then
he could control the spirit before casting the visability spell.  Then the
spirit would arrive on the material plane controlled and ready to go.  Once
the task was complete could the shaman then cancel the visability spell and
send the spirit back to be held by the fetch?

DC



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From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson)
Subject: Spirit taxonomy
Message-ID: <9411072139.AA26337@hawaii.dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: 7 Nov 94 21:39:31 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6866


Colin W.:
> > > I consider Intellect spirits to be the ghosts of animals; and Power  
> > > spirits to be the ghosts of plants (which lack INT)

Sandy P.:
> >	But you can use the INT but not the MPs of an intellect  
> > spirit, and you can use the MPs of a power spirit. Yet you can't use  
> > either in a Magic spirit. 

CW again:
> Yes, but I thought these were just features of the different binding
> enchantments rather than differences in the way the spirits worked. You
> can't use the MP of a bound Intellect Spirit because that's not what
> Bind Intellect Spirit is meant to do.

I quite like this view, but it does seem have as its logical conclusion
that if you had a clever enough Binding Enchantment, then you could bind
a suitably meaty spirit as a _combined_ Intellect/Power/Magic spirit,
which would be somewhat gross.  Unless there's some handy reason this
should be impossible or prohibitively expensive, or as Colin suggests,
the spirits are distinct too, which seems to be multiple redundancy of
game mechanical magic control systems.

> What I was getting at in my original post is that spirits should be
> bound differently; not just because of what they do, but because of what
> they *are*. You can't bind an Intellect spirit in the same way as you bind
> a Ghost because the former is (I imagine) a Beast-spirit whereas the latter
> is a Man-spirit.

This seems very odd.  Firstly, it seems counter to the intent of making
the Binding Enchantment the determining factor in the taxonomy of bound
spirits and their effects.  And also: since most Beasts can't know spells,
having fixed INT, why would Beast spirits make very good Intellect spirits?

Alex.

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From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson)
Subject: Fetches, spirits, familiars.
Message-ID: <9411072140.AA26352@hawaii.dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: 7 Nov 94 21:40:55 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6867


> Simon Hibbs asked
> >If we gathered a shaman, priest and wizard together and asked them
> >what each though a fetch, allied spirit and familiar was, I wonder
> >what answers we would get?

David Dunham:
> I see no reason you wouldn't get the answers from the rules: a part of
> myself, a gift from my god, a tool I constructed.

But as answer from whom, and to which question?

I suspect you might get the "rules" answer from each, regardless of which
thing you asked them about.  (Though with a great deal of added invective
concerning the other two, naturally.)  So for example, a shaman might
describe an awakened allied spirit as warped animal totemism, and the
familiar in terms similar to those Paul Reilly couched his Vessel ideas
in to slide them past the (notoriously neo) shamanicist Greg...

(This breaks down for asking a priest about a familiar, of course, if
they think sorcerers are godless, but them's the breaks.  At least some
theists would say that of some (IG and/or saint-worshipping) sorcerers,
though.)

Alex.

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From: henkl@aft-ms (Henk Langeveld - Sun Nederland)
Subject: Re: Pamaltela, Gods, and worshippers
Message-ID: <9411080811.AA05300@yelm.Holland.Sun.COM>
Date: 8 Nov 94 08:11:09 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6870


T.J.Minas:

>Colin Watson says" The gods exist via their cults". Sorry, must disagree, there
>are a number of Major deities whose existence is vital to the existence of
>Glorantha (see RQ Companion, Jonstown fragments), and via extrapolation,
>probably most of the deities now listed as the "possessor" of each of the Runes
>in the RQ Deluxe book 5. I am sure that these deities do not exist solely via
>their cults. They have listed actions in Godtime etc and later (eg Humakt's
>fight with Yanafal Tarnils). The Gods _ARE_, and _HAVE BEEN_ and _WILL BE_, and
>that's all she wrote.


Which leaves me thinking...

There must be a couple of gods in Glorantha unknown to anyone,
but still there...  

And what's the difference to the people of Glorantha?
-- 
Henk	|	Henk.Langeveld@Sun.COM - Disclaimer: I don't speak for Sun.
oK[]	|	RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM

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