Harsaltar and magic systems.

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_interzone.ucc.ie>
Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 07:00:15 GMT


Stephen Martin said, aeons ago:
> Phil Davis once thought that the defeat of Harsaltar was martial arts
> related. The boy had a geas not to strike a foe from behind. As Harsaltar
> was striking his killing blow, the Emperor did some kind of martial arts
> doding/turning thing, and thus the boy struck him in the back, thus
> killing both of them.

Hrm. Evidently, the Emperor (and/or his then Proxy) is an Aikidoka! Only, a rather bad one... "Observe, as I imitate the action of Pierson's Puppeteer, and skillfully turn my back on you as I perform the famous "No Dodge Dodge"..."

> I also favor changes to Spirit Magic, though not in the way Maurice does.
> I also see Spirit Magic as common to all human and probably humanoid
> societies. [...]

> I rename this category of magic as Personal Magic [...]

This strikes me as a Great Leap Backwards. I don't think it's simply _true_ in Glorantha, that "Low Sorcery", "Low Spirit Magic" and "Low Theism" is all the same, and a rules system that mixes them up in a beeg bucket (with a double 'elping of pate') is doing itself no favours, either for strict accuracy, or for conveying flavour.

If anything, I think we need to move in the other direction. Have magic systems which are _more_ individualised to their host cultures, not less so. Though on the other hand...

> A further note on shamans and shamanism. I do not think that all shamans
> have fetches. There are real-world shamanic traditions where the concept
> of fetch is not as relevant as the concept of a Spirit Ally or Spirit
> Guide, who is extrenal to the shaman.

Nevertheless, surely such an entity is still a "fetch" in RQ games terms, perhaps with one or two slight differences in the particulars. Much the same could be said for another objection (whose I forget, sorry), that "discorporation" was the wrong metaphor for some RW shaman, and that not all such believed in _exactly_ the same image of the "spirit plane". Well, _gosh_. I think it's still reasonable to model apparently similar trance/ecstatic states with the same rules (perhaps with the odd tweak here and there), and _roleplay_ the different in look'n'feel.

Slainte,
Alex.


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