Hi guys. My Riverjoin centered sorcery game is starting to be ready to play. I tought I'd run through some ideas here for feedback.
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I've been thinking about the essense planes and tapping, both separate and combined. I've always liked the evocative descriptions on the effects of tapping (like stuff heard from Greg at a Convulsion some years back), but neither the RQ nor the HW mechanisms for it really worked.
As I understand it tapping is mostly a sorcerous (as opposed to wizards) practise. The chain of veneration channels a lot of magical power from the peasants (and the rest) up towars God. The wizards of the church are parts of this pyramid structure of veneration, and no doubt a portion of the energy is used by the wizard, while the rest is channeled up the pyramid. Wizards don't really have a pressing need to tap things for energy.
Sorcerers are outside this structure, and often power their stronger magic
by tapping any useful essenses they can find. The classic example are the
Arolant Brithini. The lands of the brithini are gray and unextiting. It's
like the sun is less bright and the colours have faded. Like being in an
old and worn painting. The peasants are literally gray, tired, dusty and
uninteresting. When they talk the sound seems to come from far away and
one has to pay closer than normal attention to make out what they are
saying. Even the laughter and noise of children at play is muted and
sounds far away.
The dramatic exception to this are the sorcerer lords of the Brithini.
They seem to glow with health and energy, and seem tall and strong in
comparison to their surroundings.
In the brithini lands everything is strip-mined for energy. The land,
the peasants, even the sunlight.
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HQ describes (or almost doesn't) the essense planes as very abstract places. Outside the (man made) nodes there is nothing but swirling energy. Still this is the place where things like fire-bears and unicorns come from.
At some point, years back, there was discussion about this on the HeroWars list. Somebody painted a very beautiful picture of the essense planes that was more exiting, pretty much a sorcerous analogy to the spirit and god-planes. A place with fields, forest and valleys where essense creature roam, and where villages and towns can be found. The higher levels hold more powerful creatures and greater danger.
I'm thinking about combining these ideas, according to my understanding of Greg's stories about tapping.
When a sorcerer opens a portal of power and casts his mind onto the essense planes he will find himself in a dreamland of shapes and forms. Many areas are vague and shifting, but as he travels he will come accross more distinct and defined areas like forests, fields and towns.
Let's say our sorcerer starts out and is looking for a useful
concentration of essense, a nexus, or node you could call it. As he sets
out he feels slight nausea as the colors and shapes swirl around him, but
he soon acclimates and starts to see a fairly familiar semi-wilderness
landscape. He knows this is all an illusion, but he doesn't fight it for
now. This is useful and good for the time being.
The sorcerer let's his mind wonder, walking around and getting his
bearings. Often when he turns around what is behind him isn't what was
there the last time. Eventually he sees something interesting, a small
town at the edge of sight, many miles away. The sorcerer heads that way,
and concentrating on movement he "walks" the long distance in few short
minutes. The town doesn't have walls, and the inhabitants seem healthy and
friendly. The traveller is welcomed, and food and drink is placed at his
hands. The sorcerer is almost taken in by the apparent reality of the town
and it's inhabitants, but pretty soon he remembers where he is and what he
is doing. The townsfolk seem to very proud of the well in the center of
the town. Apparently the water never runs dry and is always cool and
refreshing. The sorcerer smiles and heads for the center of the small
town.
As the sorcerer walks towards the central market and the well, he
concentrates on his Symbolic Sight. There is a significant resistance from
the strong thoughtforms of the area, but suddenly he succeeds. The town,
which he knew to be an illusion all along, is replaced by the true vision
of complex essense forms swirling around him. The nexus is truly a
formiddable one. Before him, where the central well seemed to be is a
point in space, just an atom really through which all the energy of the
town flows. The font of power looks magnificent, vibrant and powerful.
The sorcerer reaches into his pouch and picks out a ring he prepared
earlier (in the real word the sorcerer's body does the same). Holding the
ring the sorcerer intones a mighty spell. Wrestling with the living power
of the nexus the sorcerer succeeds, and binds the power to his ring.
The sorcerer returns his consciousness to his body waiting at the portal
of power. His ring, previously just a disc of humble matter thrums with
power. The town on the essense plane continues it's existance, the
inhabitants having no idea of the significanse of what has transpired. The
sorcerer can now tap the essense nexus freely and easily, and as he does
so the formerly prosperous town withers and becomes a more and more
miserable place, eventually to disappear if the sorcerer draws enough on
the nexus.
That's basically my idea about tapping, and one of the significanses about the essense planes and the portals of power.
[nodes, as HQ describes them]
The other side of the coin of the tapping of nexi is of course the creation or at least shaping one. A powerful sorcerer or wizard can walk the essense planes and form a place of power into a permanent area, classically a study or a laboratory, but also something like a castle when founding a martial order.
The node of a sorcery school founder will contain the books and secrets of
the founder, in addition to the founder himself. Basically the node is a
permanent image of the mind and soul of the founder at the time when he
formed the node. Contacting the node of the founder is a key secret of a
sorcery school or a wizardry order. The secrets of the school do not have
to be written down, since every Adept learns the secrets directly from the
founder, or at least by studying and experimenting in the node, which is
practically the same thing.
Since the founder in the node is actually just a memory of him, he can't
be tought anything new by any normal means. Adding new knowledge to the
node requires a heroquest. The person who is attempting this has to know
all the secrets of the node and heroform the founder. He then enters the
node not as a student, but as the founder himself (via heroforming). Then,
when he is there he has to have enough sense of identity left to remember
the knowledge wants to add to the node. If he is successful against the
resistance (at least the 1w3 resistance, more if the founder was more
powerful) he can cribe the new spell or technique into a grimoire in the
node (there is propably a library) so that the knowledge will be
permanently added.
After that the quester can attempt to return and to end the heroforming.
One of the dangers is being absorbed by the node. The quest was successful
by the mind of the quester never returned to his body. The new spells or
techniques have been added to the node, and for all intents and purpouses
the questers mind and soul have been absorbed into the node.
Nodes pretty much like this are also what the saints have left behind. Saints and other venerated "gods" provide sorcerous/wizardly magic to people who are not adept, or even apprentises themselves. These people venerating saints and lesser gods (inappropriate worship of gods) need piety and a ritual skill. They only need the ritual skill to manifest the magic of the saint. These spells can be quite powerful, but the users are not Adepts. They have no way of learning and creating new spells, and the cult propably places a lot of restrictions to their behaviour.
[A clarification here. I'm going to run the game takin inspiration from Ars Magica. Sorcery/Wizardry are going to be much more flexible approaches to magic than in the HQ version. Specific spells will be very exact, but the magicians are able to create their own spells, and to improvise weak effects on short notice. The magic of saints and inappropriately worshipped Gods will require the expenditure of Piety. Piety is accumulated by righteous living and holy accomplishes.]
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A final thing. I'm trying to gather up material in forging a vision of the West that is culturally based on (early) Islam much more than on christianity or Judaism. Persian/arabian looks, dress and culture are underused in Glorantha, I feel. So when you think about the material above, for Cathedrals, think Mosks and for priests, think imams and mullahs.
I'm nowhere near ready with the cultural material, but that is what I'm going for. I'm currently thinking about using Arabic (for names and the like) for the common western language, and Latin as the ancient language of the Land of Logic, and thus the language of magic.
End of Glorantha Digest, Vol 11, Issue 141
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