>Actually, no one here has discussed spirit magic.
I noticed that, and have been hoping to poke some answers there, too.
>As I read it, the trend is that spells need to have an active connection
>"proven" to the node(s) that power and direct them, which is (at least
>initially) done through a heroquest. Probably done by the initial Saint.
This seems to be the building consensus. Exactly whether that's done once, many times, or what is a little unclear. And the difference between Saints/orderly stuff and Founder/Sorcery remains a bit unclear to me as well.
If the approach is "founder goes over, establishes the links and the rules" then it settles out nicely in that the types of rules and connection needed are different, which explains how they diverge.
Where "veneration" gets in here is a little vague.
>(Although, I would speculate that the magic in the Abiding Book already
>worked when it was first read, as part of the miracle of its creation.)
Pre-tuned. :-)
>And there is a broader range of opinions, but I get the sense that the
>summary for theist magic could be formed as: feats are discovered by
>heroquests. These feats are then either directly passed down to the
>community or individually gained by repeating the heroquest.
Again, a little unclear if you have to do it each time to learn it. It certainly seems that way as most things are written. The HQ1 magic rules made a feat you learned from a cult seem different than one you learned by going on a heroquest, but I think it's been established that it wasn't the best model. One interpretation here is that there is absolutely no difference except that you get better instructions, rules, and support for doing the feats that are well known and accepted by the cult you are part of. How this ties in with affinities is also unclear.
Where "sacrifice" comes in here is a little vague as well.
>This suggests that ALL hero cults are formed from the teachings of an
>explorer heroquester, not someone that first performed the great deed of
>magic (or discovered a new skill, or made a new type of object, etc.)
in the
>Material world.
Although, if you take the whole "people can drift into the heroplane accidentally" position, then it might be both sort of. Or, I think at some point it was suggested that when someone does something cool enough on the material plane and stories are told about it, it eventually becomes replicated/accessible on the hero plane.
>For animist magic, the most likely heroquest is for the initial
discovery of
>the spirit and the forming of the connection that allows people in the
>Material world to make the negotiations and bindings that create
charms and
>such.
It does seem the only one that allows for a HeroQuest in the "follow a
myth" style.
HeroQuest meaning "go into the other world" seems to allow for all
Shaman stuff. Of course, that's the spirit world and not the hero plane
according to HQ1, but who knows if that's what it was supposed to be.
>If so, imagine how much harder it is to just wander in the
>Spirit-flavored heroplane, looking to meet new entities and hoping they
>don't devour you. At least, to me, that explains why the God Learners were
>(mostly) messing around with the divine plane and their myths, rather than
>trying to decode the animist traditions.
Cultural blindness? They didn't realize that if they just barreled through the original myth they would have the rules to all negotiations and could even change those rules to suit themselves? Also, I would think there is likely to be a myth of the original negotiation for each tradition, maybe even each type of spirit. If you go with the "first person does it and then they come back and teach it to people" approach, then the God Learners can just learn the given negotiation. If you have to cross over and re-enact the myth in order to be able to negotiate with a given spirit, that's harder.
I kind of think they already had binding spells that worked on spirits, and thought the animists mostly primitives, and so didn't put as much work in it as they could have.
LC
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