(Message rqd:49) Return-Path:Received: from Holland.Sun.COM (sunnl) by homeland.Holland.Sun.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA09293; Thu, 24 Jun 93 17:16:23 +0200 Received: from glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM by Holland.Sun.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1e) id AA18278; Thu, 24 Jun 93 17:16:04 +0200 Received: by glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA02427; Thu, 24 Jun 93 17:15:15 +0200 Date: Thu, 24 Jun 93 17:15:15 +0200 Message-Id: <9306241515.AA02427@glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM> 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, Thu, 24 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: s.phillips@gla.uk.ac Subject: HANDY HOUSEHOLD SPELLS etc Message-ID: <23_Jun_93_16:53:35_A10D6F@UK.AC.GLA.VME> Date: 23 Jun 93 15:53:35 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1157 -------------------------------- Sam Phillips, Glasgow, Scotland. -------------------------------- Hello all. Thanks to SteveG & Greg Fried for answering my questions on the Gloranthan year and Centaur plumbing. Is adding two weeks to each season the only answer?.. CENTAURS:- ---------- Actually I used to play a centaur (in the days before we realised how uncivilised they are). Many a jape was had trying to squeeze him into the pub. I assumed his diet to be a vegetarian, high fibre version of normal human food. We now stick to almost totally human PC's and avoid such problems although you do meat some funny looking people in the pub.!. Now on to today's topic:- (While desperately trying not to sound sexist..) DOMESTIC SPELLS:- ----------------- It has always troubled me that magic has always revolved around the battlefield. I know that spirit magic was always meant to be Battle Magic and used to be called just that, but in the increasing realism that has swept through RuneQuest no real attempt has been made to de -militarise common magic. Divine spells have had this treatment (to a limited extent) and there have been a few spells added to add spice to new cultures/ races (Peaceful Cut). But I would welcome a whole load of little everyday spells for everyday people to do those things nobody likes doing - especially cleaning. Unstick Burnt Pot, Footeze, Hide unpleasant odour, Find Shoe, Remove crease, Egg-Time, Repel Insect, Liquidise, CoolBox, Remove Itch, Prevent Curdle, Find lost Button, Churn, Gleem, Amuse Baby, DeHumidify, Kill-all-known-Germs,...etc. -- Are any of these more daft than most of the common Spirit Magic spells when you step back and look at them? I mean, Technology appears as magic to those of a less advanced society. Most of our technology revolves around two things - WAR and HOME. We have all the war spells - what about the home spells that make more time for the fun things - like going to war! Is an Antiseptic spell less likely than a healing spell? A cleaning spell less useful than a Repair or Glue spell? I don't want to go down the road of accusing and waving fingers at sexist attitudes - I don't think it really applies - are women gamers more concerned about these issues? I hope not! But I'm an insomniac and I worry about these things in the wee small hours. (So would you if you were about to be consumed by a teetering tower of sentient, angry crockery and a shoal of angry sock-sharks collecting in a feeding frenzy, waiting to bite my little toes... "If only I could find that shoe I could cross the carpet and make it to the kitchen to confront the Crockery-Beast"). I need these kind of spells and I have technology - I'm just not that good at using it..) But in an historical context most of the above spells would be of use to women rather than men. Or housekeepers rather than Warmongers. Actually many would be good for shopkeepers, beekeepers, etc. But you get my point. Not yer average adventurer but probably everyone else. Which brings me to.. MORE GENERALLY ABOUT FEMALE CHARACTERS:- ---------------------------------------- When I briefly ran a Vikings game I spent a while working on the profession of Housewife - arguably the *MOST* important Vikings occupation. The list of skills when fully compiled was huge! It seemed to dwarf those handed out to the average male character... But then Viking women were left for half the year to do everything - The rest of the time they had to do everything AND wait on their malefolk...I'm sure this is all relevant to Glorantha as most Gloranthan cultures seem to roughly follow the 'traditional' western male/female role pattern. (Trolls being a notable exception). Female PC's, if they have to accept lower STR/SIZ stats, should be compensated by a higher skill base or perhaps they should have their own set of handy spells (passed from Mother to Daughter!?)... CHEERS! SAM. X. --------------------- From: T.S.Baguley@open.ac.uk (Thom Baguley) Subject: Lunar delicacies Message-ID: <9306231613.AA28599@Sun.COM> Date: 23 Jun 93 18:11:36 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1158 >I was planning >on some sort of quasi-mediterranean meal (more North African and Turkish, than >Italian), but would love any additional suggestions. Try and get hold of some squid/kalamaris and serve it up as 'chaos tentacles in a seafood sauce' ;-) Thom --------------------- From: tzunder@cix.compulink.co.uk (Tom Zunder) Subject: Playtest Solo Message-ID: Date: 23 Jun 93 19:58:53 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1159 I need 4 playtesters to playtest a solo I'm writing. I need petty minded but literate players who'll rip it apart and help me put it back together again. Anyone want to volunteer? EMAIL me -------------------------------------------------------------------- Orlanth Rex! tzunder@cix.compulink.co.uk -------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------- From: davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake) Subject: Re: Hunger/Undead Message-ID: <9306240512.AA01776@cs.uwa.edu.au> Date: 24 Jun 93 05:14:00 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1160 This has been mentioned on the Digest/Daily before, but some new comers seem to have missed it. In personal communication to me from both Greg and Sandy (some administrative problem at Chaosium meant I got two answers to one letter) they said the following about the runes in RQ3, as far as I know the most recent word from them on the subject of specific runes. The Rune formerly known as Undead is now known as Hunger. It represents not natural hunger (so KL, ZZ, and other gods big on eating don't have it) but chaotic, unnatural (presumably unsatisfiable) hunger. It belongs to most Undead anyway, because most have this hunger (vampires being the obvious example). A non-undead cult with the rune that is documented is Krarsht, a diety well-associated with hunger. Some undocumented cults might include Gloomshark and Daga. Undead that don't hunger for life energy (like ZZ zombies) are not associated with the Hunger Rune. The funny little up-arrow rune for Pamalt is the Pamalt Rune, the grid thing for Godunya and Path of Immanent Mastery is the Dragon Rune. Both are God-Learner inventions (Kralorelans and Doraddi have their own Runis systems). The Rune that looks like a darkness rune with a line through it (also known as the 'Subway' rune :-) is the rune of Shadow, representing Darkness without cold. It is also associated with ignorance. It belongs to Moorgarki (in Troll gods) and others. Cheers Dave Cake --------------------- From: gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au (Graeme Lindsell) Subject: Sorcery vs Lunar Magic in RQIV Message-ID: <9306240702.AA16788@cscgpo.anu.edu.au> Date: 24 Jun 93 11:04:57 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1161 Nick Brooke and MOB are both voting for replacing sorcery with Lunar magic in the base RQ4 package. I think it would be unwise to do this because: i) There is no reason to believe a new version of lunar magic would be any less buggy than sorcery, and the old version of lunar magic in GoG is a particularly dull structure IMO. Dull because it is useful almost exclusively for killing people, and that's because spirit magic seems primarily useful for killing people, with some exceptions like glue, farsee and the detect spells. If we decide to introduce new Lunar magic into the book now, with less than a year to run, the playtesting will be just as difficult as introducing new sorcery rules now. ii) Lunar magic is used by only a very small total number of people Glorantha-wide, and they are all found in the Lunar Empire. Even if RQIV is supposed to be based around Prax, Sartar, the Holy Country and the Lunars I believe it would be unwise to devote a large section of the RQIV basic rulebook to a form of magic that is very geographically restricted. I would rather see Lunar magic in a Lunar pack: very few PC's will ever have become Lunar magicians as they have to be illuminated first, and I haven't seen any Lunar magician NPC's in any of the published adventures. Sorcery has a much wider geographical range than Lunar magic as a technique: most regions of Glorantha have at least some sorcerers present. Sartar and Prax are exceptions rather than the rule, IMHO. iii) I agree with a previous poster who estimated that there are probably at least as many sorcerers in the lunar empire as there are lunar magicians.Those who know some sorcery will probably be even more common: the Lunar empire is civilized, and according to RQIII character generation 50% of civilized characters are taught sorcery. I know this is meant to apply mainly to whole civilizations not to just inside one culture but I still think that the Lunar Empire will have a fair percentage of its citizens knowing sorcery, apart from just the Carmanians. This would not be unaligned sorcery per se: I see the Lunar sorcerers as being related to the philosophical schools of Greece, the Stoics, Cynics, Epicureans etc. These were all concerned with "right living" more than the existance of divine entities, and I think that the sorcererous emphasis on natural laws would attract philosophers. As long as the philosophers accepted the supremacy of the Red Goddess they would be tolerated. I think this is in keeping with the Greco-Roman themes I see in the description of the Lunar empire (though I also feel there is a strong Byzantine influence as well). These philosophies were mainly attractive to the educated, who I see as the main users of sorcery in a society; I think in some parts of the empire it would be considered "progressive" for an Irripi Ontor to know some sorcery, and be conversant with these philosophies (much to the horror of the traditionalists, of course). They might be fairly common in Dara Happa amongst those unfortunate enough not to be able to trace their ancestry to Yelm. Using the Stoics et al is handy for the GM too, since there is a lot of history and philosophy he can adapt to a Lunar campaign. iv) I think the statement that sorcery won't work without a social context is untrue: the social context of spirit and divine magic as presented in my copy of the RQIII rules (GW hardbound) are pretty scant, and they work OK. Sorcery just needs a set of rules that aren't broken IMHO. RQIII presents the three types of magicians usually seen in myth (and in history): the tribal shaman, the priest and the sorcerer. To say that the first two can be described by generic rules, with specific data for each culture, but the last has to have new rules for each separate culture seems a bit stange to me, and might inspire new players that they are in for the kind of "whole new rules in every supplement" treatment that I see in White Wolf's Vampire stuff. IMO The base rule book has to include the generic rules for all three type of magician plus a specific cult write-up for all three. v) I'm puzzled as to why Chaosium decided to invent a whole new set of rules for Lunar magicians. The Lunar magicians seem to fit the description and origin of sorcerers pretty well (civilized origin, educated, lot of training needed). If we had an unbroken sorcery system I'd make the lunar magicians another school of sorcery, with an emphasis on mental and illusion powers, unique chaos sorcery that derives from Illumination, and having the same lunar cyclical effects as lunar rune magic. Thus inside the Glowline all these sorcerers would have spells twice the intensity of normal sorcery. If we were to leave sorcery out of RQIV I would use the space for an expanded list for spirit magic, to give it less of that combat only feel (where, for example are the spells that induce mental states other than fear, confusion or anger?), or for some more expanded cult write-ups, rather than for a form of magic used almost exclusively by NPC's in a limited, if important area of Glorantha. Graeme PS: I think RQIII is actually as deficient in its treatment of tribal/animistic cultures as it is of sorcerers: all tribes have the same generic full range of spirit magic, they are only distinguished by the rune magic they all seem to have, not by their spirit magic. The pure shaman is just as dull as the pure sorcerer. I think all the animist cultures should have some spells forbidden ("the darkness spirits are enemies of the tribe"), most available as per usual, and some available for free or even without needing the INT to memorize them: "Due to the pact made by Wozden the Founder, we are allied to the fire spirits of the land" ->members of the tribe Ignite, Extinguish, Firearrow and Fireblade at half the normal cost in INT to memorize, though the MP cost is the same. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Graeme Lindsell Email: gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au --------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------- From: venturi@cs.unibo.it (Mirko Venturi) Subject: SUBMISSION!!!! Message-ID: <199306241007.AA04089@jago.cs.unibo.it> Date: 24 Jun 93 14:07:28 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1162 My name is Finelli Michele, Bologna,ITALIA. How can I get RQ Digest ? Here in Italia we are HUNGRY ( and ANGRY ) , because it seems that here anybody plays or knows RQ . Help us and you will have the never-ending bless of the True Twin Orc Gods HUzuvk and Kazuck. ( Question for the future : why not orcs in Glorantha? and don`t say that Stafford saifd no because for what we know we may well discover that Orlanth ,after all was anOgre !!!, I have wrote something, who cares, and how can I send it to you?). Us you may have seen I don` t know neither English nor the use of Nets, so be patient in Arachne Solara name.