>This doesn't help much with a player-character smith, whose goal is to be
>the best smith in Delela, and who recently wanted to forge an iron sword to
>give to his clan thane when he became tribal king.
>
>I suppose I should have said, "no, you can't be a smith" at the beginning,
>but it's too late now. Given my original blunder, I need to figure out how
>the cult of Gustbran works. Note that King of Sartar considers his cult as
>one of the small, odd, but accepted ones like Chalana Arroy or Issaries.
I would make it work something like initiation into a craft, its just the craft skills include a number of magical secrets as well as metalsmithing skills.
Initiation requirement - must have a decent Craft:Smithing or equivalent (Craft: Armoring etc.), must be sponsored by an initiate, which almost always means being an apprentice. You might want to give them Heat Metal as a spirit magic.
Acolyte/Priest - must be a Master Smith. Probably there is also a requirement for some enchanting knowledge (50%?). Add whatever other requirements you feel like adding to make it harder for your player to taste. I'm not sure about the time/money requirements exactly, but I think the time percentage is pretty low (10%, 20%) but the smiths are expected to spend most of the rest of their time smithing.
Spells - Enchant Iron, Enchant (anything else you think is locally known), Armoring Enchantment, Strengthening enchantment, Enhance Gustbran.
I think shrines grant different spells - depending on the local ore etc. Shrines might commemorate particular sources of special ingredients, or might commemorate the creation of special magic weapons. I think each shrine has a different spell, and some of them might be unique not on the standard list. OR you might simply say that if lots of the clan joins in on Gustbrans holy day ceremonies, the local shrine counts as a major temple that day, thus granting access to all the common enchant spells for the year. We really do need to decide what the case is on these minor gods.
In any case, I think the best way to represent smith magic in RQ is using the Enchant skill, and making a magic weapon requires enchant and smith skill rolls. Then for the fancy one off magic items that Michael mentions, you need to seek out special magical enchantment spells and their unusual ingredients, which still gives you all the mystery of the magical master smith, but lets you keep the actual rules easily understood. If you want to make fancy enchantments not so divine, make the really nifty enchant spells be spirit or sorcery spells (the Third Eye Blue, for example, probably learn their enchanting as sorcery rituals), which makes fairly little difference from a game mechanics point of view - its the enchanters Enchanting skill that makes the difference between success and failure, and his POW that gives the enchantment its power, wherever the magic of the enchantment process comes from.
Magic smiths making magic items is a cool source of heroquests however the rules work. There is both the knowledge of how to make the really cool things (known by dwarves, fire spirits, earth crones, ancestors, etc.) and the magic ingredients (dragons blood, sweat of an honest man, roots of mountains, etc.).
Cheers
David
------------------------------
Powered by hypermail