I agree that is perfectly possible for them to transform a family into beasts, but I would argue that the threat is much more effective that the actuality. If the morocanth typically turn a valued slaves loved ones into animals and only rarely turn them back this is not a very effective tactic. It's effectively equivalent to killing them, just crueler. Would lobotimizing your family enourage you to work for the people who did this?
I would expect that it is significantly more effective to use this as a giant hammer with which to threaten with. You would have to turn someone into a beast every now and then, to convince new slaves that this is possible and to make certain that one one forgets. But to do it routinely, I don't think it's likely. The respone would be too unpredictable, ranging from murderous anger to suicide.
> One-use POW isn't that big a deal. If a typical shaman gets
> 2-4 POW a year (an underestimation, IMO), he can afford to blow 1
> of those pts each year on a Fix Intelligence. If the working
> lifespan of a shaman is typically 30-40 years
And I was assulted* for arguing that a skilled religious functionary could accumulate 30 points of resuable magic. . .
*By the advocates of "Only one adventure per year can be done. The rest of the time you must sit at home and watch the grain grow" gaming. Sigh.
> In addition, an initiate can ecologically produce the
> effect of a one-use spell by sacrificing his own POW into an
> enchantment and giving it to a shaman in exchange for the shaman's
> use of a one-use spell. If the shaman values the enchantment as much
> as the lost POW, you have produced a way to trade initiate POW for
> shaman POW. I'm sure this technique is used among the Morocanth,
> though it may not prove effective among many human clans.
This would work, assuming that your average initate had a high enough enchant skill to make it effective. I wouldn't expect this to be the case. What would you expect the success rate to be for an average initiate?
Kevin
End of Glorantha Digest V2 #613
WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html
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