Flavoured POW

From: Joerg Baumgartner <joe_at_toppoint.de>
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 97 20:19 MET


Nick Brooke said:
>The argument that POW and MP are "flavoured" at source, then given yet
>a further spin by the cult you join, and finally by the specific spells
>you learn or sacrifice for, seems unnecessarily complex. I cannot see
>any great game joy arising from this approach. It seems safer to treat
>POW/mana/life force (cf. Gloranthan essays past) as a universal
>constant, equal in value whether generated by a troll, human,
>hippopotamus or what-ever. What you can *do* with your POW is then
>determined by culture and cult membership.

I agree that there is little point in assigning a specific flavoured POW or "vis" to each and every being in Glorantha.

However, I liked the idea that apart from the general life force any being has a magical being may dedicate part of its POW to a certain "flavour", and use it separately from or in addition to the general life force whenever that flavour is appropriate.

Hmm, doesn't this sound close to the RunePower concept, where an initiate sacrificed into a divine magic pool? If applying this to heroquesting beyond the cultural/cultic norm, individuals might as well build up their personal stores of flavours besides the cultic pools.

I'm not sure that the POW pooled that way needs to be transformed into divine spell ability - it might as well be a way to resist certain forces, or to power other magic. Whether reusable (and if so, how) or not is another issue.

So, assuming an Orlanthi goes on an extrardinary Yinkin quest, will he gain beast magics, Yinkin magics, or simply Orlanthi magics? What if a Yinkini Orlanthi does a Basmoli quest?


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