> A sorcerer who evokes a bolt of fire is not violating
> physical law, he is merely spending his own energy to tap into the
> source of Fire and letting it through to the world.
Don't forget the all-important source of the human mind: there are
emotions that are Fiery as well as there are physical energy which is
Fiery. Thus you can use your Sky-aligned emotions and transform them
into material Fire, as well as calling upon the celestial
constellations or the subcthonic powers for creating the needed
flames.
The "spirit" which the barbarians espouse as the soul is nothing more than the spiritual side of their material bodies, made up of the five elements. Of course these spirits will be attracted to the energy fields of the most similar elemental energy after death, just as the physical breath leaves the body to join the winds and the fire (heat) of the corpse escape up in the sky. This strengthens these energy fields, and as the learned mr Petersen pointed out, makes them take on anthropoid characteristics, achieveing a Will separate from that of the Creator because of the True Souls that are trapped within them, and thus a pseudo-soul. However, since the True Soul can be nothing but One, as it is a reflection of the perfect Creator, these ant-hill-like mass-souls cannot reach Solace, and they deterioate slowly, releasing the souls to be reborn.
This anthropomorphization process is quiet different depending on whether the elemental energies and doomed souls comes from A, impious Malkioni or atheists, B, fairly civilized pagans or C, savages.
In the first case, the attraction will only be due to the uncontrolled emotions and lack of devotion, and the energy fields of the elements will have Will, but no true personality. Thus it will be wild and uncontrolled, and such countries will be plagued by all sorts of calamities, until they dissolve or are destroyed - many examples of this can be found both in modern and ancient times.
In the second case, the attraction will be due to the pacts made by various warlocks and magicians who have sold their and their lackeys souls to the energy fields. This practice originated in the fact that in ancient days some corrupt wizards, when death was immanent, willingly bound themselves to these energy fields, and controlled the therein bound souls by virtue of their superior training - witness the examples of Worlath, Ehilm and Humct. They cowed primitive and ignorant people to give them their souls in exchange for protection. Other primitives, seing this, began to invent superstitious rituals (the theories of which were built upon shreds of wisdom gained from true Malkioni) to appease the energy fields in a similar way, not realizing that these lacked personalities; by virtue of this process they gained one.
In the third case, the only contact made by the animalistic savages will be with various lesser spirits. They will thus gain many of the souls of the pagans, growing somewhat stronger and attaining some human characteristics, but in no way like the Pagan Gods.
However, a pious man (or, in extraordinary cases, woman) has strengthened his Soul so much by Righteous Living, that it will be unhesitatingly attracted to its source, the Creator, and then the pious will live forever, close to the Invisible God, in everlasting bliss and glory. This ascension to a higher state of being results in the scattering of the spiritual elemental energies of the unclean spirit, since they obviously cannot follow whence the Soul which keeps them together goes. Thus, the pagan warlocks and witches who can "see" spirits think that the souls of pious Malkioni are dissolved after death, shredded.
Because of this, in a pious kingdom, the possibility of righteous wizardry will be mightily enhanced because A, the corrupt energy-fields of the pagan god-constructs have less Will there, since none is gained by the death of pagans or unpious Malkioni and B, the death of many pious Malkioni will release the spiritual elemental energies without any Will binding it, making it more easy for wizards to do so.
In an impious kingdom as described above, any wizardry will be hard to work, since the Willful energy fields may not respond as expected, and most of the spiritual elemental energies are bound with Will other than that of the Creator, thus unknown to the pious. What is more, the powers will be unruly, lacking any true personality, being more monstrous beasts than thinking beings, and even harder to decipher. However, since they are bestial, they will seldom willingly harm a wizard, simply because they cannot fathom his existence. The worst problem is, that in such areas there will be many dark sorcerers, who will have turned themselves into demons to avoid entrapment at death, since they know they can never reach Solace.
In a pagan area of the more civilized kind, a wizard will also have a hard time for similar reasons as described above. However, here the fields of elemental energy have taken on various human-like personalities, like unto those of the heathens who worship them. Since it is fully possible for a pious man to understand in part the mins of a heathen, the clever wizard may work around the foolish demons - though he must be on his guard, lest he is caught in actual idol-worship like the pagans. On the other hand, these demons are human-like enough to be truly vengeful, and will thus more often punish the wizard, turning mere failures into magical calamities.
The savage land will also be like unto the first described. However, it will lack the demonic wraiths of impious sorcerers, and in its place have many minor natural demons. These can actually be controlled and used by a wizard, though this entails high risk. Otherwise wizardry in these areas will be similar to that of the first kind of impious land.
One should of course remember, that the borders of the living fields of elemental energy flux and interact. Thus this can only be a very rough guide to what a wizard can expect from new surroundings.
Erik Sieurin, who wonders if he really believes there is someone in Glorantha which believes any of this mess?
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