In a way, yes. However the trappings are essential from a Glornathan perspective. The sorcerer must have his grimoire to read from just as the animist must have his mouse tail necklace to suck on during the dance.
>But most of the HeroQuests we've ever had presented are NOT experimental
>HeroQuests. They are well-known hero quests that just happen to address
>rare situations.
I think most of them were once experimental. They are now well enough known to be performed with a reasonable degree of safety.
> >The power of the rune comes from Glorantha via one of the three worlds,
> >via the HeroPlane. If the text you learn from hasn't been linked to
> >an essence source you're just learning meaningless words. Learning a
> >spell from a grimoire is a very controlled and limited HQ.
>
>So really there is the "attune the grimoire" heroquest, and then all
>your spells work. So you re-enact the myth of your school's founder
>first attuning the grimoire, then you can use the spells since they are
>now attuned. (Presumably, the book itself includes tips/knowledge to
>help teach you this one heroquest.)
Well you can't attune your own grimoire until you've learnt the spells in it. That's where the school comes in, they teach you the spells using an already existing grimoire. Then you can make a copy for yourself and attune it. If you are really lucky your mentor may give you an existing copy. I imagine the HQ to attune a grimoire involves a lot of ritual and going onto the heroplane to find the source of each spell in it. Bear in mind that a grimoire will probably include spells added after the school was founded.
>In a way, all sorcery then is just a variant on the "Do a HeroQuest
>to get a magic sword" thing.
Yes.
> >I see no reason why a Hero could not do it. It's magic which fits
> >a Vingan affinity - combat, specifically spear combat. We know the
> >GLers pinched theistic magic so why should the reverse not be
> >possible?
>
>And, in your view of it all being based on heroquesting anyway, there's
>no real barrier to "pinching" in the first place, since it all comes
>from the same place.
>Even if you do a "it all comes from the runes, we just have different
>approaches to calling it that" it still allows for pinching.
>I think the question is whether this pinching comes from mere imitation
>("they threw something! I could throw something!") or some kind of more
>direct "stealing of power" like everyone accuses the God Learner's of.
We know this can happen from the write up of Makabaeus in ILH2. He was a sorcerer who found a source of energy. Only after he started using it did he find out it was Sedenya.
The GLers were just doing this sort of pinching on a larger scale and with little consideration for the effect on the world.
-- Donald Oddy http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/
Powered by hypermail