Pam Carlson in 476 disagrees with Howard Fielding and says that magic is very common in Glorantha. I heartily agree. If it were not so, Glorantha could become a dull place (actually, it does become a dull place in the post-KoS age of Harshax). But Pam also says:
>You are right in that none but misfits and landless wanderers would waste
>time learning Bladesharp and Demoralize spells.
I (mostly) disagree. In the 1600s, much of Genertela is frighteningly violent place, and almost everyone must be ready to defend their homes from (pick from: Chaos, Trolls, KoW, Lunars, any post-Ban expansionist group, Wolf Pirates, etc). Certainly only a few would know all the spells PCs usually know (at least from the RQ2 PoV), but I think many farmers (especially) and even some city folks would know Bladesharp (maybe only 1 or 2 points), Protection, Demoralise, Befuddle, Disrupt, etc. Probably a family would spread the spell knowledge around, as money and time allowed, so that the whole family knows all the spells, but each member only knows one or two. And some villages might get together to pay for someone to learn Fireblade or some such for the local militia.
OTOH, we need to keep a balance. Greg has said, I believe, that RQ showed much more magic than was common in Glorantha. For example, Healing 6 should be quite rare, and divine spells like Resurrect should be even rarer. Rare, but not unavailable. What Pam argues for, I think, is a world where magic is commonplace, but the kind of magic folks use is mundane (to speed the plough, to heal minor wounds, to bless the fields, to help catch dinner in the forest) rather than combative (look at most PCs for examples of what should be uncommon or even rare). But RQ the Game was designed for wargamers, not farmer wannabes, and so we have rules that describe the rare and esoteric spells, rather than the more common and (for players in the '80s) boring ones. Some folks have already begun to transform RQ into a game that includes the true magic of Glorantha, but the roolz are slow to catch up ... (Of course, I'm no saint here -- I use RQ2 and haven't tried to include the farmer magic in my game, but I won't criticise anyone who does -- just don't take away what we already have).
Peter Metcalfe in 474 responded to me:
>IMO the spirit magic is the same regardless of how it is learned.
>A magician could teach his charges every single trick that he
>had learned with the spell but the chief constraint is time.
In RQ2 (perhaps I should reply to the rules digest instead?), it took one week to learn one point of a spell. I assume that even the most backward Gloranthan understands magic at a basic level (not individual spells, but that there are "magical" techniques for interacting with the world that require using your "inner strength" (POW) rather than your smarts or brawn). If so, then a teacher could spend time instructing the student on the specifics of the spell being learnt, rather than basic magic theory. Thus, I assume a week is long enough to learn all the tricks for that one point of the spell. And certainly, spending half a season learning 4 point of the same spell, should give all the insights and uses, even if the first week didn't! All IMHO. YMMV (your magic may vary).
Michael (I prefer to think of my sig as 'utilitarian') Morrison
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