Perhaps Red Vadeli can only mate once (like a male bee -- entomologists please correct me). Perhaps they cannot mate while the Red Claw spell is in effect. Perhaps they can only create offspring by sacrificing something of themselves (thus to have a POW 10 kid, they have to sacrifice 10 POW). But let's not have them as hornless red broos.
Nils Weinander asked me about my pre-Dawn magic
> which people have this primitive magic and why?
I used the primitive system for Wendaria, which is now part of Carmania. Possibly it's still used there. However, I suspect it's about as popular as bronze is today. If you go to the trouble of making something of metal, why not use steel? Likewise, why put your magical effort into a more difficult, less reliable magic system? (One answer would be if there's some ritual reason to -- perhaps an old god can only be contacted by singing, not Worship (old god). But this is an exception.)
As you and Peter Metcalfe suggest, primitive people don't necessarily have a primitive magic system. However, this was the magic for the Neolithic period of Glorantha, when many other aspects of technology were less developed. I assume that magic has gone through refinement and technological innovations until it's where it is today. In fact, the innovation continues -- the Lunar manipulations of spirit magic seem like an improvement, and the magical Colleges are an improvement over the Neolithic group magic.
Although the Neolithic Wendarians practiced a primitive form of magic, and didn't have bronze, it would be wrong to think of them as primitive. (They had beer, after all!) And while their magic might be primitive by today's (Third Age) standards, it was probably as good as anyone else's (YarGan's magic might not have been more powerful, merely more focused on doing nasty things).
Michael Raaterova claimed
> As there are no knowledge criteria for practicing
> petty magic, i don't see why every culture shouldn't practice it.
Not true. You can't use the magic of singing without knowing the right songs.
Perhaps it would help if I summarize the rules I used (these aren't complete or heavily tested). To gain a magical effect, you must know the right song or dance (in the PenDragon Pass rules the number you know is limited by your Memorize skill). The "caster" must make a Ritual roll (or Ceremony, if you use RuneQuest rules). Then you take the log2 of the number of people who make the relevant skill roll, which gives you the "intensity" of the effect.
So if four people join in the Might of Bisos dance, and all make their roll, each would have STR +2 for a while (the effect needs to last after you stop dancing). If 16 people are involved, but only half make their Dance roll, that's still 8 successes, so all 16 get STR +3 (unless they fumbled). This is intended to be group magic, since Greg tells us that's the direction that Pelorian magic evolved in (as opposed to the individual magic of the Orlanthi).
The rules for paint and masks were more idiosyncratic.
Joerg claims Hazia is legal in the Lunar Empire. Is this a summary of recent discussions with Greg?
David Dunham <mailto:dunham_at_pensee.com> Glorantha/RQ page: <http://www.pensee.com/dunham/glorantha.html> NO ZUKES! Stop zucchini proliferation.
End of Glorantha Digest V3 #86
WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html
Powered by hypermail