Pam Carlson
> Heck, Theya Two mothers
> wouldn't even cast her last Heal Body on ANYONE as long as either her
> husband or brothers were still in danger.
Well, Theya isn't exactly healer material, is she?
> She let them suffer and become crippled,
> reserving her spells to keep her family members alive during the
> winters. I am certain most Sartarite women would do the same.
Probably. The attitude you describe above is that of an Ernaldan - cold, calculating.
> Even CA's live in a community.
Agreed. However, their community is a fringe community to the general society, with different values and ties than the rest. CAs aren't charged with keeping the fertility of the land up, they are charged with the task of keeping people healthy.
Naturally beloved persons, or those of importance to the healers, will get preferred treatment. Unless duty interferes. Just like a married Humakti may find himself in a situation where duty forces him to slay kin and even family, a CA may find herself duty-bound to help someone else while a plague kills off her family.
Good points about the quest.
>(A Sun domer? A Pavic worshipper? A Praxian? A Pentan?
>A Lunar?) How would she know where to look for their soul?
>Could she even get there?
Yes. The original LBQ, basically the source for the Resurrection routine, was performed for a foreigner, lost to an unknown afterworld. She would have to rely more strongly on her path-finding companion and her knowing companion, and she might need the confused mystic to follow through, but she would have the basic ritual for any Hell of Glorantha. (IMO the unaccessable Lunar Hells may be bound to the Red Goddess' mastery over the Young Elementals, separated from Glorantha by the Void...)
IMO Resurrection needs to be rewritten as a group effort led by a CA healer, but taxing all participants.
Robert McArthur
> The possibilities that resurrection offer the society are huge.
> Well, actually, it is what they offer the individuals that count.
> Any powerful family is going to want to have a CA acolyte or
> higher near, if not always with, them.
Nice idea.
> Children will be pushed into CA 'convents' at a young age, to
> serve their masters when they 'come out'. OK, this is likely not
> the way it works in the small steads of backward Sartar, but move
> into the more 'modern' and urbanised areas and societies, and I'll
> bet this happens.
You've convinced me that this is how it happens in Hendriki Heortland.
Basically, these convents are the "public service" branch of the set-up. You wouldn't want to have to rely on an untrained healer when there is a crucial resurrection to be made, would you? So let them hone their skills on other people...
> It even has the advantage that only stupid Humakti may want to
> off your prized healer, as the relgious results of killing a
> rival's healer are probably not worth the small advantages in
> depriving the rival (of course,if you are about to kill the rival
> then judicious kidnappings for 7 days, or accidental teleporting a
> weeks ride away may happen).
If you believe in Living Shields strategy, make a CA healer your bodyguard...
It's easier than that. All you have to do is kill someone else relying on the same healer first, and as soon as that resurrection is on the way, off your real target. The nice part of this under RQ is that (unless the healer has multiple Resurrections, not too likely really given the wide range of other useful spells CA provides) your opponent will have rotted away a bit even if the healer manages to bring him back too, and won't be as much of a threat as before. The leader's senility through a late Resurrection can be a better weapon against an enemy clan than to kill off the leader; one might even provide one's own healer to make up for the inconvenience.
> Even if resurrection turns out to be very difficult - in the
> order of a minor heroquest - the benefits make it worth it to
> those with the money and power. So what if you had to pay for
> ten acolyte's education & training so that one of them may succeed.
You can even brag about your generosity in doing so.
> When the time comes, it's the success that matters! This means,
> of course, that it's a rich-person's game.
Once a leader (another word for rich person, really) has his trained healer, he may also use the healer's services to grant favours he can expect to be reciprocated.
> You can bet that the CA milk this for all it's worth (again,
> remember the urbanised setting only for this discussion).
I'm sure that this works on the (Alakoringite) tribal level as well. A healer cannot be commanded to perform a service, but needs to be convinced. Once again, an Orlanthi leader would need to show (off) his generosity towards the healer as well, and the healer can get concessions the leader wouldn't make otherwise.
> Benefactors galore, new hospitals etc. Really, it only the good
> fortune of chaos that has kept the healer population and power in
> check ;-)
Economics are bound to cut in at some point, though this did not stop the English nobility to grant away their inherited lands to the church. When Henry VIII joined the Reformation, he did so also in an effort to regain about one third of England which had gone into church ownership over the course of almost a millennium.
Poor funds: In the Lunar vs Orlanthi discussion of Glorantha-Con in Vancouver, Nick reported the Orlanthi reaction to "and what about needy not of your kin" as a blank look. IMO the situation isn't that bad in rural societies, where "beggars" may get by as occasional guests at wealthy steads. Of course, some recompensation is expected from them, tales from the road or similar.
Crippled warriors can expect some support from their brothers-in-arms, who would allow less fortunate comrades to stay as guests for longer intervals - if they have the means. Victims of diseases may well fall into the care of the Chalana Arroy cult if there is no kin left. I doubt that "Restore <Characteristic>" is more regularly cast than Resurrection, even if one of the worse diseases has ravaged a place.
> PS. Think how people would be treated and act in *our* society
> if they could resurrect, since it is (effectively) available to
> anyone meeting the requirements of becoming an acolyte - or even
> initiate!
IMO a cultist of CA able to resurrect would be almost meeting the requirements of an acolyte - surely the cultist must be favoured by the cult to learn this spell/ritual, and that indicates that the cultist must have used other healing magics for the cult before.
In RQ terms: If you go through the list, and have the same candidate also learn "Heal Body" and "Heal Wound", you're three points short of the required priestly 10 points of Divine Magic. You've also sacrificed at least eight points of POW, reducing the magical effectivity of a Resurrection considerably.
Mikko Rintasaari (hiding away from his employers)
> I'll side with this. Resurrections are rare and difficult...
> bringing people back from across the river of the dead is the
> greatest and holiest mystery of Chalana Arroy. This is never
> undertaken lightly, and there is _always_ a cost.
Of course there is a cost. If the resurrection follows the LBQ literally, there is a trade of lives, since CA required a guardian to Hell who died there, and whose soul led the questers on (Flesh Man). I don't know if this is the case with the CA resurrection spell (which is an easier variant of the Full LBQ), but I wouldn't rule this possibility out. I'm fairly certain that a volunteer giving up his life to guide the healer would increase the chance of success greatly.
> I think this is one of the cases where RQ rules and Gloranthan
> reality differ quite a bit. A rescurretion attempt is much
> closer to a dangerous Hero Quest than a 3 point
> close-your-eyes-lay-on-the-hands-and-WOOSH RQ ritual divine spell.
Even the rules say that resurrection is a ritual spell. They fail miserably to describe the ritual, though, but since a summoning of the deceased's soul seems to be involved, you can expect at least half a day for an average human just from RQ rules...
> Also, people brought back are very rarely unchanged and undamaged
> by the experience. Their spirits had already started leaving the
> mortal world, and many don't seem to remember how to live. The
> cults of Death and the dead seem to attract the resurrectees.
Too bad that Humakti don't like resurrectees, and would most likely have them fail in their applications more often than others. The Pharaoh's cult, on the other hand, certainly would attract resurrectees.
> The 7m cults also have resurrection as their main party trick.
> They brought back a long dead goddess, and this gives them some
> power over Death. Even more than in Chalana arroys case I feel
> that the 3 point runespell is right out. I think a lunar resurrection
> ceremony demands a rather powerfull priestess from each of the
> cults of 7m, and that the ceremony itself is rather slow and
> cumbersome. I think their resurrection works very reliably though,
> and the fact that they work as a group spreads out the MP / POW
> loss, and offers protection incase they accidentally bring back
> something different (which i think is a wery real danger, when
> trying to snatch a soul back from Death).
Hmm. WRT the 7Moms, we know that the resurrection was a trade - the resurrectee (Red Goddess) took over the body of one of the participants (Teelo Norri).
Regretfully, I doubt the Lunar spell still works this way - it would be fun to see the resurrected Yanafali adapt to the body of the fragile Teelo Norri nun who participated...
I do agree that a (fairly) full complement of 7Mom representants is required for the Deezola spell.
I _don't_ think that the participants (for either CA or 7Mom resurrections) need to be high up in the cult hierarchy, or have to be accomplished magicians. For one thing, it is more fun to have PC companions participate actively in the resurrection, and in magical theory, the closer the participants in the ritual were to the deceased, the better the chances for success.
End of The Glorantha Digest V5 #555
Powered by hypermail