> From: Peter Metcalfe <metcalph_at_...>
>Subject: Re: Illumination
>Becoming Illuminated is probably a contest between one's riddle
>knowledge and the cosmos (the barrier might be 2W or something)
>resolved at appropriate times. As a result of being illuminated,
>you achieve the realization that everybody is wrong. Real mystics
>view illuminates as cursed because they don't know how to refute
>these lies to find Nirvana. Instead the illuminates have a desire
>to find something... anything! that will stabilize their insight
>or else become insane.
>
>I assume that illuminates still have the capacity to join multiple
>cults and the like to learn their powers (but do not have to devote
>their attention for theistic cults etc) but they are prevented
>from learning the secrets (and vice versa, people who learn secrets
>cannot become illuminated because they are already connected to
>the mystic realm - I'm basing this on the fourth paragraph of HW:RiG
>p166). There was a comment in a draft about how they could do
>HQ challenges in the mundane world but it wasn't much developed and
>I don't know the reasoning behind it - it might even be completely
>wrong.
I like this account (though I still think the counter/strike rules need an
overhaul). I'd probably use the illuminatation ability in contests to join
multiple cults, avoid spirits of reprisal and so on - as from the later
illumination rules in RQ it seemed that these abilities were not automatic
on illumination.
Thom