Star Captains from Carlson, Pam on 1995-06-13 (Glorantha Digest Vol 01)

From: Carlson, Pam <carlsonp_at_wdni.com>
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 95 14:00:00 PDT

Pardon me if this is a question better suited to the rules digest, but I'm not on that one, and I prefer a MGF-Gloranthan answer anyway.

Last night our intrepid Orlanthi attacked a small Lunar Army supply convoy on the ROC, guarded by 11 Silver Shields and a couple of monitors. Just for fun, I made the SShields Polestar initiates. At one point, their commander was about to be diced to bits by a half-naked, blue-painted barbarian who came out of nowhere (Darkwalk) and slaughtered the nice Deezola healer who had just pasted him back together. As this was expressly against the Yuthuppan Rules of Engagement (revised 1602), he figured it was time for some divine help; he called a Star Captain.

The RQ 4 draft lists Polestar as having the divine spell "Call Star Captain", but it's not described anywhere I could find. So I made up the following:

Call Star Captain, reuseable, instant, ranged, 2 points, stackable?

This spell summons Polaris to send a bolt of star energy screaming down to earth to support his followers. The ball shatters into 2 lightening bolts which do 1d6 of lightning damage to a target within 3 meters of the point of impact (armor and spells protect).
At the heart of the Star Captain is a spirit (POW 2d6+6) which Demoralizes all foes within a radius equal to POW in meters if they fail to resist. The Demoralizes occur 1 SR after the Star captain strikes.

The above is the effect it had in the game. I also thought that the Star Captain might Fanatacize all friends or otherwise improve the morale of Polaris worshippers - in addition to or instead of the Demoralize. I considered that it might be stackable and made larger - perhaps enhancing the area of the demoralize or making the POW spirit tougher. I figured this spell is the only really offensive divine spell Polestar has, so it should have a decent effect. It's not at all lethal, unless you're a rabbit or something.

This spell drew two types of responses from the PC's:

Way too powerful. (This from those who had just pulped two (2!) acolytes of Hwarin Dalthippa and a Jakaleel/sorcerer by using a 1-point Darkwalk spell...)
Cool! Add some special effects!

So I added some special effects:-)

Screaming bolt, temporary bright light, strains of erie music.... The next round, when our poor enotomark was pulped anyway, he lucked out and made a DI to be saved. The bolt which came down to retireve him made a shimmery, transporter-like effect. Now he'll push papers in Yuthuppa with his POW of 2, as they slowly subtract the value of the convoy from his pay:-(

But does anybody have any ideas how a Star Captain works? How does this sound? Dave Dunham thought it minght be sort of an etherial warrior, which I thought would be Big Game Fun, too.

Pam