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Date: Wed, 16 Jun 93 17:15:29 +0200
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From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer)
To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest)
Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily)
Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Wed, 16 Jun 1993, part 1
Precedence: junk
Status: OR

The RuneQuest Daily and RuneQuest Digest deal with the subjects of
Avalon Hill's RPG and Greg Stafford's world of Glorantha.

Send submissions and followup to "RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM",
they will automatically be included in a next issue.  Try to change the
Subject: line from the default Re: RuneQuest Daily...  on replying.

Selected articles may also appear in a regular Digest.  If you 
want to submit articles to the Digest only,  contact the editor at
RuneQuest-Digest-Editor@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM.

Send enquiries and Subscription Requests to the editor:

RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Henk Langeveld)

---------------------

From: kenrolston@aol.com
Subject: RuneQuest Daily
Message-ID: <9306151128.tn39716@aol.com>
Date: 15 Jun 93 15:28:56 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1073

Curtis Shenton:

Sorcery needs to be able to support all sorts of cultures? Well... yes,
theoretically, but my bet is that we haven't enough CONCRETE background about
most Gloranthan cultures to speculate about their sorcery. I prefer to work
on the settings where we have the most detail (ie, Sartar, Prax, and the
Lunar Empire). I have much more confidence in a Unified Field Theory of
Divine Magic, since it is plausibly arbitrary and not subject to logical
analysis by its mortal practitioners. A Unified Field Theory of Sorcery, on
the other hand, is a bit more like Natural History or Science, requiring
higher standards of internal logic for a tolerable design -- and I have my
doubts of ever understanding Gloranthan metaphysics well enough to model its
actions through sorcery simulation rules. 

Of course, I hardly wish to discourage energetic theorizing about global
Glorantahn sorcerous metaphysics. It just isn't a priority for publishing in
the near future -- not because it wouldn't be cool and interesting, but
because i doubt a consensus could be reached on it without knowing a LOT more
about other Gloranthan cultures than I do.

Ken Rolston

---------------------

From: okamoto@hpcc90.corp.hp.com (Jeff Okamoto)
Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Tue, 15 Jun 1993, part 2
Message-ID: <9306151648.AA05469@hpcc90.corp.hp.com>
Date: 15 Jun 93 16:48:56 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1074

> From: JARDINE@RMCS.CRANFIELD.AC.UK
> Subject: God Learners, Mythology and Us!
> 
> Who cares whether all the God Learner's disciples were wiped out?  
> Because, we all know that some of them are alive now and using this net!

Unless you know the God Learner's secret, you are not a God Learner.

Jeff

---------------------

From: grendel@sfsuvax1.sfsu.edu (John Castellucci)
Subject: RQ Adventures #1 still available
Message-ID: <9306151853.AA20502@sfsuvax1.sfsu.edu>
Date: 15 Jun 93 04:53:39 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1075


Copies still available!

RQ Adventures  (published 3 times a year)

Dedicated to exploring the world of Glorantha through original material.

   The 1st issue is now available and contains a full length scenario,
Escape From Duckland.  The adventure is 32 pages of excitement including
10 full encounter descriptions, 8 fully described characters for use as
PCs or NPCs, encounter stats, player handouts, maps and more! Set in Sartar,
the adventure describes a journey from Apple Lane south to Holy Country.

"I love it!" - Ken Rolston (and many others!)

RQ Adventures is professionally typeset and printed -- issue 1 is 32
pages saddle stapled + cardstock cover (same format as TOTRM).

Issue 1 is $5.00US for United States residents (postage included)
           $6.00US for foreign (no foreign currency accepted)

Make checks payable to:  John Castellucci

and send to:             RQ Adventures Fanzine
                         2006 22nd Ave.
                         San Francisco, CA
                         94116  USA

---------------------

From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner)
Subject: Elmal/Yelmalio
Message-ID: 
Date: 15 Jun 93 19:05:48 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1076

Hi there!

I just received my copy of John Castellucci's RQ Adventure #1 and loved to 
find this note on page 12:

"There is current rife in Sun Dome [...] This tablet claims that the god 
of Sun Dome is actually Elmal [...] Scholars are bitterly arguing over 
this point [...]"

First time I recognized myself in an adventure (arguin bitterly - now, 
really!)

I can only recommend this excellent piece of work!
-- 
--  Joerg Baumgartner   joe@sartar.toppoint.de

---------------------

From: carlf@Panix.Com (Carl Fink)
Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Tue, 15
Message-ID: <199306151940.AA16126@sun.Panix.Com>
Date: 15 Jun 93 11:40:10 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1077

To: runequest@glorantha.holland.sun.com
Subject: keeps going and going and going . . . .

marks@slough.mit.edu writes:

R>     Maybe he was confused by the Glorantha book, which states
 >that "Aside form the dwarves and a few minor atheistic cultures,
 >the Malkioni are the only practicing sorcerer culture in
 >Glorantha."  Given that sorcery IS used in other societies, this
 >suggests that there is a real difference between merely having
 >some sorcery around, and being a sorcerous society.

  Yes, good point.  While Eastern society is full of sorcerors, it isn't
built around sorcerors/sorcery the way Malkioni culture is.




  It is once more suggested that we leave sorcery out of the basic
rules.  This violates the First Commandment we set up when we started
out:  Thou Shalt Not Ruin Existing Characters.  That is, it would become
impossible to keep running existing sorcerors.
    

---------------------

From: carlf@Panix.Com (Carl Fink)
Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Tue, 15
Message-ID: <199306151943.AA16409@sun.Panix.Com>
Date: 15 Jun 93 11:43:45 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1078

To: runequest@glorantha.holland.sun.com
Subject: keeps going and going and going . . . .

marks@slough.mit.edu writes:

R>     Maybe he was confused by the Glorantha book, which states
 >that "Aside form the dwarves and a few minor atheistic cultures,
 >the Malkioni are the only practicing sorcerer culture in
 >Glorantha."  Given that sorcery IS used in other societies, this
 >suggests that there is a real difference between merely having
 >some sorcery around, and being a sorcerous society.

  Yes, good point.  While Eastern society is full of sorcerors, it isn't
built around sorcerors/sorcery the way Malkioni culture is.




  It is once more suggested that we leave sorcery out of the basic
rules.  This violates the First Commandment we set up when we started
out:  Thou Shalt Not Ruin Existing Characters.  That is, it would become
impossible to keep running existing sorcerors.
    

---------------------

From: gharris@Jade.Tufts.EDU
Subject: Some Sorcery Comments
Message-ID: <9306151633.aa02592@Jade.Tufts.EDU>
Date: 15 Jun 93 20:33:20 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1079


        Well, I thought it was finally time to put together my 
thoughts on the direction sorcery will take, so I'm taking some 
time to put my thoughts down on magnetic media.

        First of all, I think that sorcery as delineated in RQIII 
is broken.  THe example Paul Reilly gives of an apprentice 
sorceror casting oodles and oodles of Damage Boost 6 spells with 
long duration illustrates what I think is wrong with the system.  
However, that isn't the same as what Paul Reilly thinks; he 
points to Duration as a problem.  Me, I think it's Free INT 
that's the big offender here.  The main problem with frre int is 
that, even with no matrices or enchantments of any kind, the 
degree of your skill isn't the limiting factor, so an apprentice 
can cast as powerful a spell as a magus.

        Moreover, I don't think Range is a problem either.  Paul 
Reilly mentions the problem of casting trnscontinental 
assassination spells via Sight Projection.  Well, first of all 
you have to get the Sight Projection there.  You can only cast it 
line of sight, which is maybe 10km max.  Then you have to move it 
at 1 meter per SR (which translates to 3kph).  If you want to 
cast a spell at someone 1000km away, you're going to have to 
concentrate on your sight projection for weeks, during which time 
you won't be able to see anything around you.  Furthermore, if 
your Projected Sight has to pass over any magical barriers, or if 
your target has any companions who have some form of magical 
sight, then you won't be able to sneak up on them and will be 
vulnerable to many forms of magical attack.  So Range doesn't 
really present an imbalance wrt Sense Projection.  For any other 
spell except for Teleportation, range is restricted by line-of -
sight, so you aren't going to get people casting Palsy at 16 
kilometers.  Thus, leaving Range as is won't cause any 
difficulties.

        We still have a problem with Duration, although it is 
fairly minor if we restrict manipulation to 1/10 skill (you'd 
need an 85% Duration to cast a week-long spell using the old 
table, and Duration is a hard skill.  Moreover, the number of 
people who can even learn Duration is going to be restricted in 
most sorcery-using societies, so the number of people who can 
cast such spells will be very few; probably fewer than 1 in 
10,000.)  It is still possible for a sufficiently poweerful magus 
to keep hundreds of long-duration spells up all the time.  This 
is clearly undesireable.  The question is, what to do about it?

        The solution presented in the proposed draft of sorcery 
rules is even worse than the problem it means to cure.  If you 
require a magus to sacrifice a point of power to get a long 
duration, but nevertheless temporary, spell, the net effect is 
that sorcerors will not cast these spells.  In fact, with the 
restrictions placed on sorcery in the draft, it's difficult to 
see how any primarily-sorcery-using society is going to resist 
conquest by eight trollkin and a war beetle.  (well, perhaps I 
exagerrate).  The way I, and even many of the more theisticly 
biased on the list, see it, a permanent sacrifice of power should 
result in a permanent gain.

        Carl Fink correctly points out that there do exist other 
examples where permanent power is sacrificed for temporary 
effects, namely divine intervention and the blessings of Hrestoli 
saints.  While this is true, it is something that bears closer 
examination.  First, consider Divine Intervention: this is 
something that is very rarely done, except when the alternative 
is almost certain death.  This is hardly an attractive route to 
power.  Giving sorcerors the ability to do something that 
initiates only do when severely threatened hardly seems like much 
of an ability.  Second, there are the blessings of the Hrestoli 
saints.  Well, these haven't actually been published, so using 
them in an example is a bit dicey, but I'll let that pass, as 
I've got a copy of the material.  In fact, for well over a year 
I've been playing in a Fronelan campaign were a majority of the 
PCs are Hrestoli.  Some PCs have actually invoked the blessings 
of saints.  Of course, the two most attractive blessings, 
Gerlant's and Paslac's, are the ones that give a *permanent* 
effect.  The only non-permanent blessing that has been invoked is 
Talor's, by my character, and believe me, it won't happen again.  
There was even one character who maintained a personal POW of 19, 
because there was no good reason to gain a patron saint and 
invoke his/her blessing.

        So, when I say that sacrificing permanent power fro 
temporary effect is a hose job, divine intervention and saints' 
blessings don't refute this; they are hose jobs as well.

        So, what other means can we use to limit the number of 
long-duration spells that a magus can have up at one time?  One 
suggestion that has been made is that the magic points used to 
cast a long duration spell do not regenerate while the spell is 
up, or that such spells require some sort of magic point 
maintainence cost.  I dislike these ideas for a couple of 
reasons.  First, it would be a bookkeeping nightmare.  This alone 
would be enough to disqualify it.  Second, it is counter to the 
way pretty much all other magic works in RQ.  Generally, you fuel 
a spell with magic points, cast it, and it is done.  Except for 
active spells, a cast spell is a separate entity from the caster 
(much to the consternation of those who want others to cast a 
healing spell on them, but have countermagic up).  There doesn't 
seem any good rationalization for changing this for sorcery.

        Another thought was that the magic points used to 
manipulate a spell must be a magus' personal magic points.  
Again, there is no good rationalization for this.  Magic points 
act as fuel in spirit (and divine, where applicable) magic.  
Sorcery is much more mechanical in nature, so this certainly 
shouldn't change.  A magic point is a magic point is a magic 
point.  Similarly, all the various suggections that sorcerors be 
restricted from using various magic point batteries and storage 
devices are equally difficult to justify, and are unnecessarily 
crippling for sorcerors (some theistic bias is showing through 
on the part of many members of the list).  So, we have to look 
elsewhere. 

        The first really good suggestion I saw fro this was to 
make exponential duration a ritual, requiring an hour per point 
of magic in the spell.  To me, this seems an excellent and 
justifiable mechanic.  It doesn't really go counter to anything 
we know about sorcery-users, and it prevents a magus from casting
the oodles and oodles of spells, since even an intensity-1, week-
long spell will take a full day to cast.  Most powerful sorcerors 
have better things to do with their time than keeping the local 
constabulary supplied with Damage Boost 6s, and that's *all* he'd
be able to do, if that.  Since to really be able to cast many 
long duration spells, a magus would need a Duration well over 
100%, as well as similarly high levels in the skills involved, we 
won't have that problem too often.  This is the mechanic I would 
prefer.

        Secondly, there is Paul Reilly's suggestion of a 
sorceror's Twin, that is, a fetch-like "being" to which the magus 
can give permanent Pow, and this Pow somehow limits the number or 
power of long-duration spells a magus can keep up.  This is a 
good mechanic in a number of ways: it gives sorcerors a gradual 
means of increasing in power by allowing them to devote their 
personal energies to their magic; it doesn't have a threshold 
where the magus suddenly is able to do something much much more 
than before; and it is consistent with the ways in which priests 
and shamans increase in strength, that is, by the sacrifice of 
permanent power for a permanent increase in ability.  The 
question is, how will a Twin work?

        A number of suggestions have been made in this area, and 
I'll try to address them separately.

        First, how will a Twin allow a sorceror to maintain 
spells and how will doing so restrict him otherwise?  There are
two basic options I see here: you can have a magus maintain a 
number of spells up to the amount of pow in his Twin, or you can 
have a magus maintain spells with total intensity up to the 
amount of pow in his Twin.  Clearly, the first is much more 
powerful.  I think if the first option is taken, one might 
restrict a magus to total manipulation of a spell based on his 
pow plus the unused pow of the Twin.  However, this is unlikely 
to be much of a restriction, since the limit of skill in spell 
divided by ten is much more likely to be the bottleneck.  You 
could have the limit be personal pow plus Twin's pow divided by 
some number, but I think that's an ugly mechanic.  However, I 
would say that the magus must maintain sufficient magic points in 
his Twin to equal the spells (or intensity of spells) maintained, 
similarly to how a shaman must maintain magic points in his fetch 
to keep spirits bound.  Overall, I think I would lean toward the 
latter option, that is, limit the sorceror to a total intensity 
of constant spells no greater than the pow of his Twin.

        How would this affect other skills?  I would think that
spells maintained by the twin would last indefinitely, and would 
have whatever range and intensity (and multispell, which becomes 
very useful under these rules [but that's okay, it's now a Very 
Hard and Rare skill]) it had when cast.  Duration would now only 
have linear effect, and any number of spells can be cast that do 
not need to be maintained by the Twin; these spells would have 
normal range, duration and effect.  I would say that if a spell
maintained by the Twin is cast on an object, and that object 
moves out of the range of the spell from the twin, the spell is 
broken.

        So, what would the other effects of a Twin be?  I don't 
think very many limitations should be placed on a magus' Twin.  
It is already much less powerful that a fetch, as it cannot act 
for the magus and cannot move about.  The idea of requiring the
magus to follow vows or geasa, or to meditate to maintain the 
Twin is not very much in keeping with the philosophy of sorcery, 
that is, it is the manipulation of natural energies and the Twin 
is the magus' natural energies harnessed and controlled.  If 
anything, a magus would have less need to modify his behaviour 
than would a shaman to maintain a fetch.  This is not to say that 
some *cultures* wouldn't necessarily requires vows of their 
sorcerors who serve priestly functions; but these restrictions 
should be societal, rather than magical in nature.

        Furthermore, I don't think it's reasonable that 
possession of a Twin would be at all discernable to mundanes.  A 
normal person cannot tell be looking that a shaman has a 60-point 
fetch, or that a Storm Voice knows Cloud Call 20.  Why should 
they be able to tell that a magus has a twin?  The presence of a 
Twin would of course be readily apparent to anyone with any sort 
of magical vision (including a limited form of Mystic Vision [say 
intensity 1] that would go along with having a Twin).

        I also strongly dislike the idea that a Twin bound into 
an object or creature could be lost or destroyed.  It may be 
unusable until it can be bound into another creature, or another 
object enchanted, but it shouldn't result in anything more than 
an inconvenience for the magus in question.

        Well, that's pretty much it for my thoughts on the 
direction sorcery should go.  Overall, I feel there are a couple 
of good ideas out there, neither of which unfortunately is 
currently in the rules, but that we need to be careful of a 
couple of things: one, there is a *strong* theistic bias among 
the members of the list, probably because of the strong theistic 
bias of much of the published material, so people seem to be very 
enthusiastic about placing limitations and disadvantages on 
sorcery, far more so than is desirable; two (and this is in some
way related), people are tending to give sorcery attributes that 
should remain cultural.  Sorcery itself is a very mechanistic 
system, and shouldn't require a lot of mystical mumbo-jumbo like 
vows and geasa and such to work.  In fact, many of these should 
have *no effect* on sorcery.  Think about it: what are you making 
a vow too?  The power of sorcery doesn't come from some god or 
spirit.


--
gharris@jade.tufts.edu          
George W. Harris              	"He'd kill us if he had the chance."  
Dept. of Mathematics            
Tufts University              			The Conversation  

---------------------

From: prharmaty@aol.com
Subject: Re: Crimson Bat to Visit / Mayor takes a Holiday
Message-ID: <9306152128.tn44537@aol.com>
Date: 16 Jun 93 01:28:09 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1080

Re: MOB & the Crimson Bat.
     I'd love to hear the aguments used to convince the Crimson Bat Cultist
that they ought to stop over at some other town. 
     "Oh, our folks are weak of body and soul ever since the disentery
outbreak. We're hardly worth devouring. You should choose the fat people of a
better place to suck the life force from."