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Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 17:15:40 +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, Mon, 21 Jun 1993, part 2
Precedence: junk
Status: O
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
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Selected articles may also appear in a regular Digest. If you
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---------------------
From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner)
Subject: Some magic, and almost no mention of sorcery
Message-ID:
Date: 20 Jun 93 17:43:34 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1128
Extension on Spirit Magic/Lunar magic:
I think this concept from RQ2 made it into RQ3 only in the form of Lunar
Magic. The description for the divine spell Extension expplicitly says that
it prolongs divine spells' duration.
While I have a player using Lunar magic in my campaign (not a Riddler, since
I play non-Glorantha), I doubt it would become very popular with regard to
the effects of duration. Simply adding up another five minutes for an extra
point of Prolong was the reason nobody was interested in this, in addition to
it's unreliability with the Moon phases.
In my campaign world the druids use Lunar magic, both in divine and spirit
magic. I also devised some stellar magic for sky worshippers, depending on
the planets' and non-fixed stars' movement through the fix stars'
constellations. I still lack some computer simulation to automatize the
stellar movements for a fictional (and I fear not overly possible) sky, so I
make it up as it comes along. Somebody out there who wants to discuss this
directly by email?
(BTW, I'm using the Oldtimer Atari ST, and won't change system too soon, so
if anybody has a programme for another system, I'm only interested in
portable software.)
My players generally like medium to long duration spells, and we think that
some effects are too measly for the life force (MP) provided. The method of
applying Extension to spirit spells seems somehow right, but I hesitate to
make it generally available on my game world. On Glorantha it is in RQ3 Lunar
magic (nowhere stated expressis verbis, but I think clearly implied in the
introduction of Lunar Magic in the Red Goddess section of GoG plus the
Extension description in the Magic Book), available only to
compromise-breaking Nysalorian Illuminates.
The problem I see with medium- or long-term duration for magic is game- and
magic-balance. If such magic is possible, what amounts are actually existant
in the game world, and how easily is it obtained?
When I look at Glorantha, there is an awful (awe-inspiring?) lot of medium-
or long-term magic running. Think about the City of Wonders, Godunya's
bridges, and similar places that virtually radiate magic. Ok, these two
examples involved god-like beings present on Glorantha, but I think that such
beings tend to attract lesser magicians who do the detail work for their
masters. As an aside to RQ4 design discussion, try to find the answer to this
question, and incorporate it into the rules!
Compromise breaking: how else do you regard the making of gods from outside
of time into time? I see no problem with persons in time who achieve
apotheosis, they lived within the compromise, and when they reached
immortality and divine status, they left the world for a divine plane
existence. A fine example for this is the apotheosis of King Sartar and that
of Pavis. Both remmoved themselves from the mundane plane. Pavis did so by
being interred in his temple, Sartar used his tie to the Mobility rune to
transform via the pyre at Boldhome. The Red Goddess, after one half wane of
superheroism, did so too, creating the Red Moon and the crater, and left only
her avatar, the Red Emperor, to act in the mundane world - a praxis
acceptable within the compromise. After all, Belintar became the pharaoh and
kept dying, integrating more and more individuals into his otherworld
existence, Godunya does so in Kralorela. The only problem with the Red
Goddess is that her original soul was summoned from before time, to inhabit
the body of some street girl, today revered by the Lunars as Teelo Norri.
Nysalor too was the recreation of a God slain in Godtime, i.e. outside of
time. This deity was essentially Rashoran recreated, the last-born of the
younger gods in god-time who taught insight of what the gods couldn't know,
i.e. Chaos. He didn't teach too many, because he was slain by some of his
pupils, the unholy trio.
CoT states that Rashoran taught his secret to Humakt, Greg Stafford now says
that once he believed that Humakt was an illuminate, but he doesn't think so
not any more. I conclude that the teachings of Rashoran were the
understanding of what chaos means, and the part Humakt learned was about the
death and destrucion of gods, not the acceptance of chaos. But this is my own
design only.
Nysalor/Gbaji's creation was a violation of the compromise, and created Arkat
in reaction.
An aside: The God Learners violated the Gods, not the compromise, for quite a
long time. I think the secret that destroyed them (and that was destroyed
with them) was how to violate the compromise, e.g. with the construction of
terrible Flesh machine in God Forgot, and maybe included Gbaji's dark-side
illumination to use the powers of Chaos. Glorantha tends to react heavily
when the compromise is overstepped, and the Red Goddess managed until now not
to cross that line. When she does, the Hero Wars will culminate, as glimpsed
at in some undetailed prophecies collected in the volume known as King of
Sartar.
Note however that the Lunar empire is not the only competitor in overstepping
that line, there are others as well.
A magic of totally different kind:
Ki skills, or crafters' magic:
I want to have crafters trade secrets made a little more magic. This is
especially interesting for smiths (who were magicians in the eyes of our
ancestors, lived outside the normal society and did dreadful things),
alchemists and artists. I liked the painter-sorcerer Paul Reilly portrayed
here some time ago. I don't think it matters which RQ3 magic system we use,
but the guild secret magics ought to use the appropriate craft skill as a
measure of chance of success. The Ki skills from Land of Ninja were a
valuable step into that direction, even though I didn't like the actual
mechanics with POW sacrifices for mediocre results.
What I want are magical smithies, mills or whatever that produce rare and
strange products, such as masterfully crafted weapons, tools, armor, flour
for lembas-like sustenance, works of art with a life of their own, etc. What
I don't want is the involvement of professional magicians, i.e. regular
priests, shamans or sorcerers in the actual process, although I'm all in for
them to teach some of the necessary magical knowledge for these processes,
such as ceremony or enchant skill. The little information I have about third
eye blue makes them one of these organisations, with some alterations to the
material posted some time ago.
Also this approach to magic leads to the question how much lasting effect
magic has in the world.
I figured from the RQ-rules I know, that life force measured in POW and MP is
used to create magic. The most common high-energy magic is worship of
deities, where large amounts of regrowing life force, i.e. MP, is channeled
in the worship ceremonies to the gods. If one compares magic to radio waves,
the cult sites of Glorantha are big senders, focussed on some receiver in the
God- or Spirit plane.
The Enchantment rules in RQ3 state that to achieve permanent effects,
non-regrowing life force has to be spent, i.e. POW.
Non-regrowing life force/POW can be spent for less permanent results, too. It
can be used to enable a deity to take care of its own in Divine Intervention,
opening a special link to the deity for magical purposes. While some people
interpret DI in a way that the deity uses the life force of the DIing
character to power the effect, I rather see it as a (if the character isn't
unlucky and rolls exactly his/her POW) partial transition of the characters
soul/life force to the deity, allowing magical energies to flow the same way
in the other direction. No self-respecting deity would allow their followers
to throw away parts of their already subscribed souls for mundane trivia,
IMO. Why do you believe are there spirits of reprisal? They are just another
tax-collecting (in this case soul-collecting) device to enforce the contract
signed at initiation.
On the same line of reasoning I'd cover divine magic. A character "buying"
divine spells transfers some of his life force into the realm of the deity,
sustaining something like the shaman's fetch there. Sorcerers would use at
least part of this for mundane (magical) benefits, as do shamans for
"spiritual" (or better Spirit-Plane) benefits.
(Sorry if I mix up the RQ4 discussion, especially Paul Reilly's and Mike
Hollyday's new sorcery concept, and the digest a bit, but this cannot really
be assigned too one side or the other. I could cross-post this, but I suppose
that most people on the RQ4-list read the digest too. My main reason not to
split ths list into a Gloranthan and a Generic faction: Then I'd have to post
articles like this into three lists, and I'd get it back three times, and the
answers in three different fora.)
So, if the power sacrificed for divine magic rests with the deity, and if a
priest, acolyte or Runelord can reuse some of it in short terms, I have no
problem with initiates who are able to do so in long terms. Sacrificing power
to one's deity is a sign of piety, because the initiate strengthens the part
of his soul/life-force already residing with the deity, and thereby his ties
to the deity. He or she does so even in hose jobs like resurrection (by other
sources than Chalana Arroy) or divine intervention, or priests' other one-use
spells, but I prefer to view these hose jobs as extremely long in recovering,
maybe longer than the individuals life time. Progress in the favor of the
deity, most often coupled with progress in cult hierarchy, but especially in
civilized societies not necessarily so, shortens recovery time.
Reusability of Divine Spells (again and again)
I'd welcome a system that allows advance in reusability gradually, with
special steps accompagnied by repeated initiation rites, such as entering a
subcult, or entering priesthood as an acolyte or full-time parochial priest.
I like the idea of agents of a deity having short- or medium-term reusable
access to divine magic, as have some Runelords in RQ3 (I think none had in
RQ2, unless advancing to Runelord/priest status). To link the definition of
these terms to holy days or special worship services gives the Holy Days and
High Holy Days some meaning, and I'd throw in pilgrimage to holy sites and
worship held there on less holy Holy Days as an equivalent to regular worship
on more holy Holy Days. A High Holy Day combined with a pilgrimage might even
enhance the normal regaining abilty, and for at least one example I know for
certan that there are multiannual cycles: the Lunar Wanes. In KoS another
cycle is hinted at: Wakboth's 600-year cycle, in GS's conclusions. The gods
are subject to time and its cycles, and cyclical magic is not a Lunar-only
effect. Ever noticed how hard it is to cast a Sun-Spear at night? or a
Lightning in cloudless Fire-season?
Enough for here and now. I'll elaborate further for Free INT 5 (appearing as
soon as I have finished this article, the scenario and the layout. Soon.)
Joerg
PS: To Adam:
Why don't you go for a private internet access? Quite a lot of people on this
list have one.
--
-- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de
---------------------
From: 100270.337@CompuServe.COM (Nick Brooke)
Subject: Sorcery Sect Secrets, and Squalor
Message-ID: <930620193511_100270.337_BHB21-1@CompuServe.COM>
Date: 20 Jun 93 19:35:11 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1129
Rob Mace said:
> I am not saying that a sect can't just keep it secret.
> I am saying that there needs to be an explanation of
> how they keep it secret.
The standard Petersen explanation was that, using the old Apprentice
Bonding link to target down, your offended ex-sect zaps every mean,
vicious, nasty damage-inflicting spell and hostile spirit it can throw at
you. I don't use Sorcery myself, so I don't know how effective a threat
this would be. But it sounds to me like it could get in the way of a happy
life teaching stolen sect secrets to your new friends.
(Oh, and you go to Hell for breaking sect vows, of course...)
Someone else wrote an interesting piece contrasting the "squalid" cultural
details being explored in recent releases with the "pure, clean" world of
the ideal Runes. I have to admit I fall between the two camps: I don't
know why Greg et al. are so keen to distance RQ from the Runes that have
always been such handy building-blocks for our understanding of the world,
while I don't see why belief in an "ideal" Runic correlation for all things
need detract from the abject squalor in which I enjoy adventuring.
Contrast is all (cf. Biturian Varosh, Jaxarte Whyded and company for
examples). This Idealist/Realist split is as harmful for Gloranthan
students as it is for the Malkioni religion. (Shut up, Nick, and go back
to sleep...).
====
Nick
====
---------------------
From: ade@insignia.co.uk (Adrian Brownlow)
Subject: Er... Sorry about that.
Message-ID: <27046.9306210813@piglet.insignia.co.uk>
Date: 21 Jun 93 01:20:14 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1130
Subject: Time:9:20 am
OFFICE MEMO Er... Sorry about that. Date:21/6/93
Sorry everbody. The reply buttons too close on my mail & I was drunk -
sorry....
Ade
---------------------
From: johnston@heart.enet.dec.com (Why settle for the lesser evil ?)
Subject: Sorcery in the east isles.
Message-ID: <9306210850.AA24288@vbormc.vbo.dec.com>
Date: 21 Jun 93 12:50:34 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1131
I've been loosely following the sorcery debate, and found some info in my RQ
collection on how the East Islanders view sorcery, which may be useful to some
of you.
This quote (bad grammer and all) is from the first draft of the Glorantha
world book (before they restricted it to Genertela), by GS, SP and friends.
Copyrite Greg Stafford 1987
"Magic is integral to their life. Criminals , rather than being imprisoned or
executed, receive magic punishments designed to fit the crime and humiliate
him, thereby discoraging his sordid acts. For example a bully might be reduced
to the size of a cat for a year. Shamans and spirit magic are unknown, but
East Islanders commonly practice sorcery and every island has a cadre of
priests to its specific diety. Almost every adult knows a little sorcery and
all towns have a "sorcerers row", where all manner of spells and enchantments
are bought and sold. Sorcery is scarcely considered magic at all - it is simply
a profession, ranked above healers and shoemakers and beneath scribes and
shipwrights."
>From this I would assume (and hope!) that the East Islanders use generally
less powerful spells than the Brithini. Also I would assume Gregs "all = 85%"
rule is in effect.
nigel Johnston
---------------------
From: DO9EA00@sysa.computing-services.manchester-metropolitan-university.ac.uk
Subject: Daka Fal
Message-ID: <9306210934.AA20827@Sun.COM>
Date: 21 Jun 93 08:28:23 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1132
From: David Ingram (DO9EA00)
Some Musings on Daka Fal:
For your edification I present some Ideas conserning Daka Fal; in respect
of two Characters, first Henya ( a daka fal/shaman from a barabraian tribe
in Balazar) and second Duke Raus:
Henya: His mind heavy with the questions that Cora (the cheif) had asked him,
henya lit the fire of scented wood and began to inhale the smoke and chew
the leaves he had gathered that morning.... Soon the trance came to him, in
the background he could hear the insecent beat of drumms and the rithamic
shouts of the tribesmen as the engaged in the sacred dances. He cleared his
mind and began to think only of the questions and then slowly recited the
sacred words of dakafal -- the spell complete the ancestors came flooding
towards him; their incesent babble deffening out the music, picking the
ghost he required he summoned it towards him and a moment later the spirit
took possesion of his body....
Hours later his body covered with a cold sweatr he came around, lying on
a bed of straw, in his hut - immediately he took the animal skin and
paint that had been leaft at his side and began to draw the answer to the
Cheif's questions...
Duke Raus: His mind heavy with the question of how to deal with the
matter of the homesteaders complaints, the duke retreated into his private
family shrine. hear in the coolness surrounded by the marker stones of
his family, he took forth the scroll from the family altar and began to read
this ancient history, what wisdom had his ancestors to give him in this matter
soon he had a name Agricola had been in an almost identical situation; he
lit the incence offering and summoned the priest. After a breif ritual of
deviotion to Daka Fal, the priest summoned forth the shade of the ancestor
and the duke began his conversations....
His questions answered the duke burnt the offering of food and spilled the
finest wine over the altar to apeaze his ancestral spirits. He stood and
returned to the audience hall....
*******
As I see it both worship Daka Fal and call upon their ancestors but
one will be clearly seen as a shaman (cf Ammerican Indians etc) but the
other will be closer to the ancestor worship common in Shinto and other
easten religions.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Ingram
- "Its an ill wind that spoils the broth"