Second of all, it is very likely that I am in need of a good and original Rune Magic system that is easily applied to Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying System for use in Italian Gloranthan games. The Basic System has been translated into Italian, and, yes, we are trying to "spread the word" in my D&D-ruled country. Since the original RQ3 Divine Magic has been heavily criticized by many, including myself, I have tried to add David Cheng's Runepower and Nick Brooke's renewable initiate magic to my own Rune system and have produced a somehow-new Rune Magic system. It appears, in Italian, on my web page, but since not many digesters can read Italian I am posting it here. Comments will be very appreciated. And of course, before using this in any tournament, I need David Cheng's and Nick Brooke's permission... (who is the currente owner of the copyright rune? it's not on the Glorantha FAQ)
Each character owns one or more copies of each rune. These are noted onto the character sheet as small icons - it also makes your sheet look more "in character" :-).
When a spell is cast, the appropriate number and types of runes are marked off the sheet. For instance, to cast Command Sylph an Orlanthi uses one Air rune, while he would use three Movement runes for Teleportation. A Humakti uses a Death Rune for Truesword or Turn Undead, but a Truth Rune for Detect Truth. The GM must provide a list of runes connected to each spell, but most associations are obvious.
This is similar to RunePower, only more specific than "Orlanthi Runepoints" or "Humakti Runepoints" because you cannot access all of a deity's spells with the same rune, and spells from different deities may share the same rune. Associate deities' spells may need runes not "owned" by the deity, which are hard to obtain.
Common divine spells are cast using one rune of the appropriate type, or two runes of any kind, per point. This exchange of two unsuitable runes per one point of spell is impossible for special spells.
The spell cast must have been "learned" by means of a re-enactment ritual, as per the last version of Runepower. Each spell learned costs the character one week of praying and 100 lunars, and raises his or her Cult Lore by 1%. Stacking limit is in effect, as per a suggested variant of Runepower: one must learn to cast Shield I, then Shield II and so on. Most temples do not allow the learning of more than one stacking point of a spell per year.
Runes are gained in several ways.
Runes are renewable. Priests and Acolytes regain runes by spending one day in prayer per rune at an appropriate temple (i.e. they need an associate deity's shrine to regain a rune tied to another deity). Initiates regain runes in the same way, but only on the High Holy Day. Rune Lords that are not priests regain runes also at Holy Days.
Trent Smith suggested a very good idea about RM renewal and traits, which I immediately buy with this optional rule: initiates and non-priest Rune Lords can renew a number of Runes at a time equal to the number of cult virtues (traits) that they have at 75%+. Each trait they have at 90%+ counts double. So a fanatic cultist with all cult traits at 90% can safely cast 10 points of rune magic a year and still be able to regain them. Not bad.
When a Priest or RL casts a spell that is One-use to him or her, he cannot regain the appropriate rune until the next High Holy Day. The GM may also rule that a rune spent on a one-use spell is gone forever.
When a spell is put into an enchantment, the appropriate rune(s) are lost forever. In fact, they are now into the matrix.
There is a sample list of Rune-to-spell associations for all Lightbringers on my web page.
Thanks to all who will reply, including those who will flame this system.
http://www.geco.it/~guccione ------------------------------
End of Glorantha Digest V4 #366
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