Sure, but having a myth about something and believing that it is 'magic' are different. Magic and the results of magic are different, a distinction that I think most Gloranthans can grasp easily despite being exposed to magic fairly often.
>> And there is the Dead Place - you can tell what is magical and what
>> is not by going to the Dead Place and seeing if it still works (the Dead
>> Place has no connection to the otherworld).
>
>Now this is interesting. Perhaps people don't heal naturally in the Dead
>place? After all the magic here was used to heal Urox
Well, if people didn't heal there then you would be right that there is no distinction betwen magical and non-magical healing - but I think people do heal there, albeit not too well. Things live in the Dead Place, it is simply lacking in both magic and fertility.
I see your point - but I disagree. I think things like healing, reproduction, death, alcohol, lying, etc. all have myths tied in with them, and all have magical connections. But I don't think any of them are intrinsically magical, and in the abscence of any magical influence at all will still continue to behave as normal. And I think Gloranthans do distinguish between the magical and the non- in some sense. I don't think that they think that there is a sharp division between parts of the world that are magic and not (ie in some sense, apples, stories, beer, kingship are all a bit magical) but they certainly distinguish between magical acts and non-magical, though it gets a bit blurry at times. But anything that requires dealing with the otherworld is very magical, and anything that doesn't is not as magical as that.
and while we are talking about the Otherworld...
>
>I understand that the Spirit Plane touches both the God plane and
>"Real" Glorantha, but I don't quite understand the distinctions.
>
I'll try and eliminate some confusion
>First, how does the spirit plane appear?
Opinions vary. If we believe the RQ3 rules, it is all grey and featureless, but that is a very dull explanation, and probably just a bit of a cop out to avoid dealing with it in detail.
My feeling, and Gregs, is that it depends on who you are and maybe how you got there.
> If a shaman is sitting in his tent
>at home and discoproates, what does he see? Is there a similar tent on the
>Spirit Plane?
I feel that there are parts of the Spirit Plane close to the material world, in which the world is reflected, and parts that are far away, which look very different.
I also feel that the Spirit Plane and the Hero-Plane or GodPlane are all just different names for parts of or ways of looking at the same thing. I did get Greg to say something that agreed with me at RQ Con DU, I think, though my memory is a little faulty. IMHO a heroquester and a shaman go to much the same places, but have different expoeriences because of the different ways they get there.
Note also from the rules that it is possible to be discorporate and in the mundane plane at the same time, by casting Visibility.
>Can he see the auras of other people who might be in the tent
>with him?
If he is Visible, or they are discorporate, easily, just by using Second Sight. If not, yes, but a little dimly, and only while he stays there.
> Are there a bunch of spirits around? How do the natives of the
>spirit plane appear? The same as normal people or ghost like?
I recon they appear ghost like while the shaman is using Second Sight from within his body, and something like normal folk when the shaman is discorporate (or to other spirits). I am not sure how they appear to heroquesters, it probably depends if they have a physical existence or not.
>Also, how does the spirit plane connect to the God plane? Would you just
>add another spot to the Inner Region chart, letting you onto the God plane?
I recon the Inner Region is pretty much the same as the God Plane, though it appears different if you travel there with a body (heroquesting) or without (spirit travel). But to perform a particular quest or get what you came for, you need to travel to a specific place on the God Plane (I don't have any rules for this). There are more powerful inner depths to the God Plane, but I just figure you don't get to them by accident or without meeting some sort of special test.
>The real reason I ask this, is I am not sure that I want to use "God Plane"
>rules for my Shaman wh's just outing spirits. (In other words, I want his
>blasted Spirit Screen 6 to run out!)
>
Oh, those rules! Well ignore them then, they are highly unofficial anyway....
>One last thing (for now :-) ) How do people handle "encounters" there. Do
>Shaman just randomly run into spirits every hour, or can they find more
>quicker than that...
Generally I find the encounter system highly unsatisfactory. I am trying quite hard to make it a bit more interesting, though I haven't managed much yet. I like the idea of making the Inner Spirit plane all about quests, though. I figure that when you go to the Inner Plane you are either looking for something new (to you) in which case it is a quest, a spiritual heroquest, and should be thought of as such, or you are visiting somewhere you have been before, in which case roleplay it out depending on previous visits. Of course, there will be times when all the shaman is looking for is a spirit to beat up on and bind, but they are usually better found closer to home than the Inner Region. And you can always make that a quest, anyway (you are all set to bind one of those Power spirits, that appear in the form of magic cows, when the cowherd appears, with his one eye and unearthly magic).
I am trying to write all my ideas about the Spirit Plane, shamanism, and all the rest of the magical world into some coherent form eventually.
Cheers
Dave
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