Magic Systems

>From: "Roderick and Ellen Robertson" <rjremr_at_...>

>... Remember that the rules for *any* magical advancement that
>appear in the main rulebook are guidelines, and indvidual magical
>practices/cults/churches/etc can have different requirements. When making
>your own cults/whatever, that is a place to start, and many cults follow
>those rules to one extent or another. The Rules are the GodLearner version
>of Glorantha - a complete package that can be representitive of a lot of
>the
>world, but can't cover absolutely *all* occurances.

I think this is a crucial note. The sections on the "big three" magic types are not proscriptive. That is, the Animism section isn't intended to imply (though through it's presentation it might so imply) that all animism works just like what's written there. Instead think of these rules as a default. If there is no note that says that an otherwise animist cult works a particular way, then you can assume that it works as it says in the animism section of the rules. But where exceptions to all of these rules exist these are (usually) intentional as written.

Meaning, also importantly, that when writing up your own cults and such, you should feel free to break these rules where you feel it makes sense to do so. Up to and including making up entirely new forms of magic that have their own unique rules for how they work. I'm sure that in all of Glorantha there are forms of magic that simply will not fit well under Animism, Theism, Wizardry, Natural Magic, Common Magic and Lunar Magic. If that's so, don't force them to fit, figure out a way to make them work like they should. At simplest, just having players list abilities for the magic keyword (or taken after start) as individual abilities. But potentially as complicated as writing up a whole rule set as complicated as the rules for animism or whathaveyou.

I think that most magic will tend to fall pretty squarely under one of the rule types presented, simply because they are so universal. So don't feel that you have to come up with new systems or modifications of the existing ones if the ones presented fit fine. Just understand that these are all examples, and not a proscription against other rules for modeling magic systems.

Mike