> In the Austerity War, Darja Danad was a pure mystic. Conditions
> were so awful that his mystic defense kicked in all the time,
> looking an awful lot like magic. Those who came after him were
> less pure, and the general situation improved somewhat, so they
> used magic to emulate what the master had done as side effects
> of said mystic defense.
I don't think Darja Danad was a pure mystic and phrases like "his mystic defence kicked in all the time" are far too much like game roolz speak to be helpful. It also makes a rather unnecessary value judgement between Darja and his followers that one does not do for other cults.
If I was doing Kabalt as a cult for HQ2, I would look not on the philosophy but on the look and feel of how they acquire and do their magic. The answer is *not* "meditate for hours and hours" because gloranthans do that all over and do not get the Kabalt magic (in Prax - the retired priests of the Sun Dome, in Dragon Pass - the Stormwalkers of the Old Wind Temple). If they are taught how to wield Kabalt by their masters at the Dojo than the cult is best described as a sorcerous one. If they undergo duels with the spiritual masters of Kabalt and are touched in some mysterious way as a result, then the cult is animist. If they worship Kabalt as a god then its theistic.
There's only one effect of Kabalt that we are actually given and that's when Darja Danad hit a captive with a stick and the man whimpered (Revealed Mythologies p69). Rather than to try and craft a mystical rulesect, all that needs to be done is to say "Kabalt is ineffective when used against a worshipper of the Avanparloth or their supporters". That's no different from the cult rules stipulating how a worshipper may use the magic of a given rune.
--Peter Metcalfe
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