Re: Mysticism in Kralorela

From: David Cake <davidc_at_cs.uwa.edu.au>
Date: Tue, 29 Nov 1994 18:00:27 +0800

>From: "R. Andrew Bean" <ABEAN_at_GEEL.DWT.CSIRO.AU>
>Since we are talking about Kralorela at the moment I thought I would
>ask somone to send a short summary of how the Mysticism approach to magic
>of Kralorela actually works in their game world. I've read the Glorantha
>sources but since I have no idea of the philosophy of real world mysticism
>and how it "works" I can't get a handle on it in Glorantha.
>

        I don't think that there is a 'mysticism magic system' as such. I do think that there are several kinds of special magic in Kralorela, and that they also adapt known magics in unusual ways. I also think that while mystic is a good description of the sort of magic wielded by the famous sages and philosophers of Kralorela, most of the peasantry stick with old-fashioned shamanism and divine worship, in a blatant display of wrong thinking (thats why they are peasants of course - the smart ones get some schooling and become civil servants).

        We have two interesting examples of magic from Kralorela. The Godunya cult has unusual and interesting magic, and probably with quite a lot of mysticism surrouding it, but mainly seems a practical sort of cult, to keep the Empire going. Confucianism is not too bad a parallel (bad David! Naughty David! Stop these explicit Earth comparisons or face the wrath of the Gloranthan Scholars). The Path of Immanent Mastery is unusual in that it seems to be a combination of mysticism (that Charismatic Wisdom stuff), and a very powerful form of primitive Hsunchen magic.

        An interesting idea for magic is skill based magic. Sandy uses something like it in his campaign, according to Guy Hoyle (I think). The Ki rules from Land of Ninja are very nifty, and Kralorela seems the best place to use them (OK, I know Vormain is the Japan analogue, but it also has its own weird colour magic, so I am not so sure. And of course the Japanese concept of Ki is basically the same as the Chinese Ch'i.). All those martial art schools make it a natural fit. The skill magic makes an interesting parallel to Taoism, as well.

        This sort of magic is basically someone who masters a skill can be taught to throw their will into the skill, and make perfect, or better than perfect, use of the skill. For combat skills it can mean guaranteed criticals, for craft skills the creation of unique magic items, for other skills other heroic abilities.

        In my game skill based magic is a standard heroquest power, but only in Kralorela can you actually be trained in Ki skills, or learn them without heroquesting.

        Cheers
                David Cake

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