killing people

        A odd little essay I wrote about killing people, inspired by a similar passage in the Steven Brust book Jhereg. Including an equivalent of the Morganti weapons from that book for Glorantha.

Killing People, and having them stay dead

apologies to Steven Brust

The existence of resurrection and various related magics makes some difference to what it means to kill somebody in Glorantha, especially somebody important.

Your first option is just to kill somebody. Stick a knife in them, break their kneck, strangle them, drown them. In the majority of deaths, thats it. They don't have easy access to a healer or priest or shaman with Resurrect, or they are not considered a priority for a healer, due to difficulty of resurrection or not being important enough to warrant such magic, or being more than a few days away. And most Malkioni, and all Humakti, do not have access to Resurrect. So most of the time, people just die. But what if the person you have killed does have access to powerful healing magic?

Of course, even with Resurrect available, killing someone is never a minor matter. Its always difficult to Resurrect someone, and the more magically powerful the person, the more difficult. So Resurrect is highly unreliable. And even if the Resurrect is successful, it may well still be enough - someone Resurrected is considerably weakened, not only physically, and magicians may also find major problems with spells lifting, spirits becoming unbound, and so on. And the knowledge that they were defeated to the extent of being killed, coupled with the re-evaluation of life common to the revivified, is likely to result in a major change in attitude.

But every so often situations will arise where someone desires someone killed beyond the possibility of Resurrection. This is a serious matter, and you have a few options to consider.

The simplest is just cutting off access to the body, so that those who might Resurrect it are unable. The Lunars do this with crucifixion, the body is simply left on the crucifix for several days. Similar practices no doubt exist in other places. This is the simplest way for the powerful to ensure the weak die permanently, but it is not always practical to use brute force in such a situation. Still, it is a simple technique, and one that governments across Glorantha probably use.

You can contrive to kill them so that the body will not be discovered for several days, or lose the body, such as by dropping it in a deep body of water or burying it. The problem is that if a person has allies with Resurrection, they probably also have allies with Divination, detection magic, elementals, spirits. Simply trying to delay the recovery of the body can not be counted on for results. Still, I imagine more than one person has found their way to the bottom of the harbour, simply as a precaution to make their recovery more difficult.

Or you can leave a corpse that is beyond the recovery of healing magic. Not difficult if you have some time. Burning the body, feeding it to something, or beheading or destruction of the head are all options. Probably removal of the heart and other organs is appropriate instead of the head. We can see examples of this all over Glorantha - feeding the body to wild dogs, funeral pyres, trolls eating their enemies, Orlanthi head taking. The only disadvantage is the most of this is considered mutilation of the body, and likely to provoke some rage in the deceaseds allies. Magic capable of recovering from this sort of mutilation is almost completely unknown, and definately in the realms of the heroic.

And lastly, there are rare magical means, such as the Humakti Stop Resurrection spell, or even more exotic magics. Spells designed specifically to interfere with Resurrection are very unusual, though more mundane magics might be adopted to interfere with the Resurrection process.

But all of these techniques, while guaranteed to ensure that Resurrection does not occur, still have one fatal flaw. They leave the spirit of the deceased intact. The spirit can still be summoned as an ancestor or ghost, or return as a cult spirit. Conceivably even reincarnated, by methods such as summoning and binding into some new body, as Thanatari guardians are
(alternatives are available for those more squaemish about sacrificing a
human bodies original inhabitant). Or return as some form of undead. And for the very powerful, there is the possibility of return from the underworld by heroic means, either under their own power like the Red Emperor, or by the actions of others, like Sheng Seleris or Keener Than. A remote possibility for most people, but not one that heroes can ignore
(though admittedly most Malkioni can, as their spirits generally proceed to
Solace, where they are beyond mortal access. Or dissipate into nothing, depending on who you talk to.).

Nothing that can be done physically can really protect against these powerful magic means of return. Even though they might seem obscure, it is not only heroes who need to worry about such possibilities. If you want to kill someone to prevent their knowledge falling into the wrong hands, you can never be really sure that killing them is enough. What do you do with the spy who knows to much? If they are simply killed, and proceed to their path in the afterlife, who knows how much their priests or shamans might be able to discover?

So what can you do about their spirit? The easiest course is to restrict access to it. You could bind it as a ghost. Thanatari probably have an advanatage against their hunters in that few their victims spirits can be contacted. You can catch a spirit. In theory, most shamans could track down someones spirit and capture it, though there are probably repercussions to such an act, in terms of angering those forces of the otherworld responsible for seeing it goes to its eternal reward. There are certainly powerful spirits capable of catching the spirits of humans, and either imprisoning or enslaving them. Both Cragspider and Yara Aranis are recorded as having enslaved the spirits of those sent to spy on them. And there are certainly spirits capable of capturing and imprisoning the spirits of others, such as the Lunar Demons the Holder, with its jar that can hold a soul for seven years, and Jajagapa, with his net. Perhaps the most extreme is to directly interfere with a spirits afterlife, by throwing it into a hell that you control, as the Lunars did with Sheng and Hofstaring Treeleaper - the most extreme, and as we know, ultimately unsuccessful in the case of Sheng.

That is as far as most people would be willing to go. But there is a step further. You can attempt to destroy their spirit. But the destruction of a soul is not something to contemplate lightly, especially as it is almost universally seen as the most evil magic known to man, and usually highly chaotic as well. But still, it is something that has probably been contemplated many times, and what's more, it is probably easier to accomplish than some of the alternatives above. There are some obscure forms of chaos that will destroy the spirit. Being fed to the Crimson Bat, or Gloomshark - though not terribly practical in most situations. There are magics that will damage a spirit, probably beyond redemption - Atyari Consume Mind, for example. And there is the Thed spell Devour Spirit. These are all difficult, though, requiring either unusual circumstances, or years of devotion to chaos. The most common method is simply to use the sorcery spell Tap Pow - spirit Tapped to Power 0 is gone, destroyed utterly.

Brithini, who Tap freely and do not consider its use chaotic, and who also consider that their own souls are dissipated at their death (and so find the fact that the souls of the pagan peoples do not a disturbing aberration) might even destroy the souls of their enemies in this way and consider it merely a reasonable precaution, to the horror of others. Similar justifications probably apply to the Galvosti, and to a Boristi, the total destruction of the spirit of a chaotic monstrosity can only be a good thing. And any other sorcerer depraved enough to learn Tap POW is already beyond normal moral considerations.

It remains only to consider practical considerations. The same sorcerer capable of casting Tap POW, whether they are a centuries old merciless Brithini Zzaburi, or a twisted student of forbidden chaotic magics, is unlikely to want to be the one who gets their hands dirty trying to use Tap in combat, given all its difficulties. And its no use after the enemy is already dead. The temptation to have your enemies captured and brought to you in a helpless condition must be strong, but not always practical, and the desire to gain magic points often secondary to efficiently destroying your enemies. All these problems can be solved by putting the spell in an enchantment. A weapon that also Taps POW on those it strikes is not too difficult to create, and quite practical.

I imagine weaapons known to Tap POW are rumoured in many place throughout Glorantha, particularly in areas that feature either Brithini or unaligned sorcerers. Known variously as Brithini Blades, Jraktal knives in Fonrit, or Soul Killers, they are the ultimate weapon for the permanent removal of your enemies, and for making them fear your ruthlessness.

I imagine they are known in Fronela as Brithini artifacts, and though no Brithini have been known to confirm their use (in fact, asking about them is often grounds for summary execution), several figure in the Sog underworld are rumoured to possess them, probably created by their own depraved sorcerers rather than attempting to steal them from the Brithini Horals. In Fonrit, they are known of, and possession is punishable by the worst tortures - but nonetheless, both underworld bosses and cruel potentates are rumoured to possess them. They are regarded as chaotic, as they use the powers of the chaotic deity Jraktal. And in Lunar Peloria, soul destroying magic is seen as the obvious ultimate sanction in the cruel world of the Dart Competitions. Its use is forbidden without the express consent of the Emperor, who would never allow its use against Lunar Citizens, but still there are those who think that either through secrecy or political connections they might get away with it, as long as its use is never revealed to the populace.

Brithini Blades, Jraktal Knife

Description
A knife carved with Western runes up and down the blade. Successful uses of Chaos detecting abilities or magical analysis spells will reveal that the blade is evil magic.

Cults
Associated - possibly Brithini or other sects that allow Tapping. Jraktal cult.
Enemy - anyone opposed to Tapping
Hostile - almost anyone else.

Knowledge
Automatic, Cult Secret

History
First invented by the Brithini, these weapons have been loathed for centuries.

Procedure
To use it, simply stab someone with it. To create one simply requires knowledge of the sorcery spell Tap POW, and sorcerous spell Matrix Creation Enchantment. The spell is put into the item at the appropriate power, along with a trigger condition (that the blade penetrate the skin) and a source of Magic points. Generally, a large amount of magic point storage is place in the blade so that the wielder can access points from the Tap, or they flow to the wielder directly.

        Edged weapons are used because the trigger condition allows use without
special training and at the same time minimses the potential for mishap.

Powers

        Anyone stabbed by it is immediately attacked by the spell Tap POW.

Value

        No one could openly buy or sell such a thing without attracting outrage.
To those who might want to buy it, it probably costs a minimum of 5 to 10 times what the normal POW expended might imply, due to specialised knowledge required to create it and the secrecy that must be maintained.