Game rules try to establish a model of a subject. A good model can give a better understanding of that subject.
Regarding truestone...
What abstractions do we know of?
"POW" represents a living being's spiritual power. A larger value tells us that a person has strong magical, and religious powers. It is the strength and size of your soul.
All advanced practitioners of any form of magic have one thing in common: they are able to dedicate a portion of their soul.
o A shaman has a presence in the spirit world.
o A Sorceror invests his soul in permanent magic.
o A cultist communes with his god(s).
One assumption that I make is that this power *Is Never Lost* and links its source with whatever it is dedicated to.
How do we translate this into rule speak?
Every cultist who is really inspired by his cult leaders will wish to live by the cult's virtues, and emulate his spiritual role model.
His first step on this path is initiation: He performs a ritual reenactment that matches some part of the cult's myths.
During this process, he gains two things:
o A permanent link with the cult's central entity/concept... o an irrevocable(*) insight into the same.
In game terms, the first is abstracted by the "sacrifice" of POW, the second translates as a cult "skill" or "spell".
My favourite ruling for this is that "learning" a spell *also* costs power - it dedicates more power to the cult fundamentals(**). That power becomes part of the RunePoint pool (RuneStore).
Truestone
Truestone can do two things: store spell knowledge and power.
Storing spells into a blank truestone will take the cultist's dedicated power - and use it to imprint the cultist's cult knowledge into the stone's fabric.
As *knowledge* is never lost - the cultist is still dedicated to his cult, and still has those special insights. However, the caster's dedicated POW is now tied to the stone, storing the spell knowledge.
I would like to suggest that the number of spells that can be put into a truestone is limited to the caster's unused RunePoints. This can be exploited by truestone hunters: They will take care to have depleted their RuneStore, before handling any suspect stones.
People who choose to maximize the magic put into blank truestone will reduce the size of their RuneStore permanently. Of course, at any later time, they can dedicate new power to the RuneStore, by going through the rituals again.
The use of stored magic
Once a truestone is charged, it cannot be changed anymore. The original caster's POW is now linked to the stone, and the spell knowledge has become embedded.
Whoever wants to use the stone, must understand the knowledge kept in it. In other words, he must be compatible with the stone's cult(*).
A truestone can be used on two ways:
o You can cast the stone's spells using the RunePoints in the stone. These can later be restored from the caster's own RuneStore. o You can use your own RunePoints directly to cast any spell known by the stone. No big difference, it can be considered an instant refresh.
Enough for now. I was left with one question (maybe more but I forgot), and a suggestion for an answer.
What determines stone/cult compatibility? - The number of identical spells known by the user and the stone determines the maximum number of RunePoints that can be used.
Any loose ends?
Next time I will extend the Law of conservation of POW to Divine intervention.
To be Continued...
(*) barring illumination.
(**) Yes, all Gloranthan cultists are fundamentalists(*).
More Game Fun...
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