Re: Magicians, Galanini, Saints, Cats

From: Argrath_at_aol.com
Date: Sun, 31 Dec 1995 20:01:37 -0500


In V2 #299, Loren Miller writes:

> why do you need magicians independent of cults
>if cult-bound magicians serve as well?

Because it's part of the human condition. The Eurmali or other cult priest has an agenda of his own; sometimes you need someone who just does what you want done, for a fee. There are soldiers, and then there are mercenaries.  There are employees, and then there are contractors. We have the Psychic Friends Network's telephone number, Gloranthans have their neighborhood witch.

You don't have to accept O'Keefe's restriction of the word "magic" to non-religious magic to see what I'm saying: magic which is truly independent of religion is too rare in Glorantha-as-described, and the only examples are the ones I listed. We need independent magic a) because it fits a human need and b) because Glorantha is more fun and diverse that way.

Joerg Baumgartner in V2 #300:
>Another possibility for "Low Magic" divination spells could be variants
>of Detect or Sense spells, aimed at the emotions and memory of the
>divinee.

I don't agree. That is much too mechanistic and psychological a technique for most of Glorantha. Much of our own world, despite the ascendancy of Western Thinking, relies on different paradigms, explaining misfortune with stories of witchcraft, astrology, spirit possession, numerology (have y'all furriners heard of Louis Farrakhan?), etc.

And of course, Nick, I was overstating the case somewhat. But not by a heck of a lot. Shamans in Glorantha are all _described_ as cult-oriented. I disagree, of course. And I mentioned that there are some few non-religious magicians described in published sources. But too few. - ------
Loren in 299 again:
>In the meantime, as per Martin's suggestion, I've replaced the
>reference to Char-un with the Galanini, but I'm not quite sure where
>the Galanini were at the time of Sironder's migration. Nor am I sure
>that the Ten Thousand passed Erigia in their trip. Anybody know for
>certain?

No, but in my Hykimi write-up I put a clan of Galanini in Charg before the Syndics' Ban. I didn't say how long before the Syndics' Ban. If it'd been 800 years before, I don't think I would have phrased it that way. But there could have been more than one migration, as the Galanini tried to maintain their ancient ways. Maybe some hardliners rejected the accomodationist attitude of the ancestors of the current "Galanini" in East Ralios, and went over the High Llama pass centuries before the more recent migration.

Absolutely not! You pray to the saint for intercession. That's not the same thing as _worshiping_ the saint, as the unholy Henotheists and Stygians do.  Rather, you _venerate_ the saint. It hasn't come up in my game, and I run a variant DI system anyway, but I'd allow Malkioni to gain intercession from a saint. Definitely not from the IG, though. The IG has only acted directly in the lives of 2 mortals, though others have managed to catch glimpses of him. Note well that this distinguishes the IG from YHWH in a big way, since the latter was constantly meddling and every historical victory or defeat of the Jews was explicable by his prophets as God's actions. (Oddly, it's the Lunars who are most like the Judaic/Christian/Muslim tradition in that their god(s) act within time.)

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