Re: allied spirits

From: Argrath_at_aol.com
Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 13:09:57 -0500


In Glorantha Digest V2 #444, Steve Barnes writes, in response to my views of allied spirits (independent of priest/lord, direct line to the god):

> A flaw in your analysis: what happens if the priest/lord
>is Illuminated? Wouldn't the ally report on all his misdeeds?

What you consider a flaw, I consider an opportunity for roleplaying and story-telling. The allied spirit will be telling on the priest or lord, but the god either a) won't believe the ally ("Hey, man, I checked his soul, he's clean") or b) can't do anything about it. The ally will be morose and snippy as a result.

And assume for a moment that the ally either departs or has to be rubbed out to avoid blowing the priest/lord's cover. So what? Gee, a gaming downside to Illumination. Won't that piss off the powergamers? I'd sure hate to do that, really. In fact, if I ever allow illumination of a priest or lord, I'll be sure to make the player worry that the ally will blow his cover.  Great possibilities for stories there.

>In fact, it would be able to immediatly spot the psychological
>change, should the character suddenly become Illuminated.

Only if it's a devotee of St. Arkat and invokes him, or has Psychology at 100%.

>I further consider an ally to be a personification of one's
>subconciousness [sic].

What, all of the subconscious? "Excuse me, Wind Lord, but why is your Shadow Cat trying to simultaneously kill and mate with me?"

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