Sorcery (in RQ3) is broken, period (or is that broken, comma, period? I can never tell), in my view, but one of the (altogether few) things it does get _right_ is that it makes peasant users of it magically feeble, and sorcerous specialists _nasty_. (More than theistic priests, I think it's generally agreed. Maybe not more than RQ3 shamans, which is worrying...)
> From what I have heard, the solution is to posit some type of Low magic
> which is more mundane but more easier to learn and cast.
This is probably a good thing, but I don't think said magic will ever, at least for the peasantly masses, be remotely combat-oriented, for both practical reasons, and observance of caste restrictions.
Nick Brooke, on the same line of thought, quotes Sandy as providing
(though not for peasants!):
> Suppress Paganism
> [Wizard class spell, New Hrestoli Idealist college of magic]
I wonder why this is a Loskalmi thing. The Rokari seem to have more contact with pagans, and to despise them with, if anything, more fervour. Though maybe less martial competence.
Like the spell effect, though. Can we have this _entirely_ replace the Indescribably Silly "Stupefy", as a matter of urgency? Down with Free INT!
Mike Cule states that:
> The Hrestoli have the advantage of a social structure that is even more open
> and democratic than that of the Orlanthi barbarians.
Neither more open, nor more democratic. The phrase Absolute Monarchy springs to mind. Certainly more _meritocratic_, though.
> This gives a social cohesion and esprit
> de corps that other countries can only envy.
Well, the sort of social cohesion they have, and the desirability thereof, is highly debateable.
> But it is done at the price of loosing much of the benefit of
> specialisation. The Hrestoli insist on all people spending their first
> years in a caste which they must leave behind at quite an advanced age
> to start over not once but twice to learn first the arts of war and
> then the arts of magic.
Discussion of the Loskalmi tended earlier to the view that progression was idealist-with-a-large-slice-of-pragmatism -- if not vice versa. Sons of wizards and lords, and (other) obviously promising youngsters are probably assigned to fast-track farmer and warrior occupations, and allowed to progress with appropriate skill qualifications in those. (Such as squire and acolthyst, frex.) This way they gain skills of use to their "proper" station in life, without breaking caste restrictions.
> And let's look at the price the 'realist' heresies pay for their
> specialisation: the social division that wracks their society.
Mediaeval europe muddled through with this sort of thing for quite a while, if I recall correctly. Without hereditary priests, but that's small beer.
> It has always struck me as odd that there is no Malkioni sect that
> takes the obvious route out of this dilemma: the opening of all castes
> and occupations to qualified persons at adolesence.
Sounds like a variation on Hrestolism, so if it exists, I'd think it most likely in one of Loskalm's Junorian "client states". Most likely to have sprung up since the Thaw, as a Loskalmisation of whatever they were doing before. (Say, having formal "caste initiations" sometime after adolesence, but caste being pretty much heriditary.
> (PS I still can't find the Holy City of Malkonwal....)
I'm not surprised, I don't think it still exists. The Castle Coast had a number of ancient cities on them, Frowal "surviving" as a ruin, but not, according to the Sog City guide, including Malkonwal. I'd treat references as figurative/legendary (referring to the lost city), confused (meaning Richard's kingdom in Heortland), or mistaken (Mike fed duff info by Greg).
Alex.
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