From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer)
To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest)
Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Tue, 05 Oct 1993, part 2
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Sender: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM
Precedence: junk
The RuneQuest Daily and RuneQuest Digest deal with the subjects of
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---------------------
From: eosgg@raesp-farn.mod.uk (Geoff Gunner)
Subject: Spirit Plane (again...)
Message-ID: <9310041315.AA17392@raesp-farn.mod.uk>
Date: 4 Oct 93 13:15:53 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1902
Geoff Gunner here, folks.
Ideas have been sizzling about Spirit Plane matters, partly sparked off by a
very nice book - 'Spiritwalk', by Charles de Lint, ISBN: 0-812-51620-6.
Deals with a lot of things aired in the digest.
Anyway, before rabbiting off I'd better make it clear what *I* want from any
treatment of the spirit plane. I want a framework that I can build upon, but
not a restriction. I want something that doesn't need lots of little rules to
make it logically coherent. Something that can explain lots of European myths,
other myths if possible as well. I'm happy to drop current rules if the new
is more fruitful. So that's where I'm coming from, and this could be where
I'm going:
GP = Gods/Hero Plane, SP = Spirit Plane, MP = Material Plane
There is a heirarchy; MP -> SP -> GP. ( -> ? )
Each successive level is an abstraction of the previous.
The Spirit Plane holds the 'essence' of a living thing; an individuals's
spirit, soul, etc.
The God Plane is an abstract; entities 'exist' which are ideals, stereotypes or
whatever (Jung's archetypes, Plato's Ideals (?)).
The three planes are interlinked; individuals possess souls, souls possess
attributes. An example: a spider has a spirit; this spirit partakes of
'spiderishness'. So in a sense, all spiders 'worship' Gorakikki. Intelligent
creatures have a concious decision on what 'attributes' to emulate.
(It may be possible to attain unsuitable attributes such as 'catness'. And
then there's the most troublesome attribute of all, Chaos!)
This works in reverse. 'Spiderishness' is cloaked in a spiritual aura, which
on the MP is worshipped as a subcult of Gorakkikki (an individual from a
plane perceiving the higher in a manner consistent with its experiences, i.e
'discrete' existance of things, which is animism (or is it 'anism'?)).
The existance of the entity on the god-plane could be tied in strongly with a
rune - both are referring to abstracts. Or is this too neat ?
Because the nature of 'reality' is different for the planes, it will be hard
for an individual to think meaningfully about another. I may talk of the
'existance' of Orlanth on the God Plane, but this is just a representation I
can understand. Hence the strange, disjointed nature of dreams - direct
experience of the SP by my spirit, but not making sense to a MP point of view.
So a large part of being a shaman is learning to think in SP terms, to thus be
able to manipulate and use the energies present there. Which is why they
always seem to be out of their box. (though that could be the powdered rhizome).
Things such as fear spirits are much more explainable. They might even be
linked to a god, if 'fear' has been personnified into a deity.
So that's my understanding of the mechanics of the situation. How to travel
between the planes: Technically, one is already present on all three planes,
but in a manner appropriate to that plane. My spirit cannot think deductively
as that is not part of the normal mode of a spirit's existance. On the GP I
would be Anger, Curiosity, etc - again no use to me as an adventurer.
So I must learn techniques to take my rational, mundane side to the planes.
Or I must learn ways of becoming fully aware of that part of me on the desired
plane (Trancendental Meditation, 'Second Sight', etc.)
On taking myself to another plane, I can make my *spirit* aware of the 'rational
me', and so extend myself into the spirit plane (note, this isn't sending 'me'
off into the spirit plane, but bringing the spirit to me.) This seems to me
to be how shamans and dream workers do it.
The idea of transferring myself physically into the SP I'm having a lot of
problems with ( e=mc^2, after all! The physical can't exist on the spiritual,
so where does it go ? Saved up as raw energy for the transfer back ? Hence
the mythical time limitations on walking the planes, as this energy is slowly
dissipating. Or perhaps it could get 'eaten' by some spiritual horror).
And transferral the other way (i.e. Demonic appearence) has the same problems.
But note - the use of energy to create mass might account for the temperature
drop/rise present at so many mythical happenings. Anyone help me out of this
hole I've dug myself ?
And what if a species, rather than an individual, learnt to cross the boundary
between the planes ? As with all invader species, they would find life a lot
easier. So the Tuatha de Daan (?) retreat from the Milesians into the lands
of Faerie in Celtic mythos. They would gain in spiritual skills to help them
survive but slowly loose their physical skills until they were fully part of
the spirit world (Irish legends are full of the TdD using mortals to do their
dirty work). I prefer European elves to Gloranthan, and forsee some good stuff
coming from this approach. Ghouls I can see as a species that are moving the
other way in a particularly nasty manner.
Anyway, I shall stop there. AS I said, this is the result of a feverish
weekend's thinking which involved alcohol, so it may be (i.e. is probably :-> )
complete gibberish.
Geoff. Honestly, I'm not a god-lear.. (THWUNK!Splot)
ps. Has anyone done any work on translating C&S magic into RQ terms ?
Although most of it is more appropriate to medieval FRP, things like the
Drug Trance and Power Word magics are very tempting !
---------------------
From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner)
Subject: Seshnela questions
Message-ID:
Date: 4 Oct 93 15:08:22 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1903
A few questions for errata to the Genertela Book, Seshnela chapter:
The population table (p.76) lists March (pop. 150,000) and Vogai (pop.
100,000). Neither are mentioned in the text (places of interest) nor on
the maps. Where and what are they?
Ginorth (p.79): Where does this Ygg Islander colony lie (presumably
somewhere in Nolos or Pasos, but not marked on the map)
The Brithini Box (p.82) says: "The Invisible God is universally
acknowledged as Creator. No other worship is allowed, even by visiting
outsiders."
The Players Book says (p.25): "The Brithini are atheists, using only
sorcery."
Do they worship, or not? If so, what for?
Leplain (p.82): "This city holds Saint Mardron's, the greatest
cathedral to the Invisible God still existant."
a) Another major saint (of at least local importance)?
b) What does Malkioni cathedral architecture look loike? Basilica +
triangularly arranged side ships, with a triangular tower at the tip?
(A French text about Refuge shows the Brithini cathedral to the
Invisible God as a tetrahedron.) ^^^^^^^^
Is this (semi-) official?
Joerg visiting the West
--
-- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de
---------------------
From: ngl28@rz.uni-kiel.d400.de
Subject: "COMBATING SPIRITS"
Message-ID: <5480*_S=ngl28_OU=rz_PRMD=uni-kiel_ADMD=dbp_C=de_@MHS>
Date: 4 Oct 93 19:39:08 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1904
Colin Watson in X-RQ-ID: 1879
Subject: Warding; Spirits
>Graeme A Lindsell(on Dorastor):
>> See my review of Dorastor I posted here a couple of months ago
>Yeah, I remember it. I even mentioned it to my GM before he bought Dorastor.
>We laughed and thought "Surely it can't be any grosser than the normal
>Published stuff". We thought wrongly.
Snake Pipe Hollow SPOILERS AHEAD - skip this paragraph if you haven't
played it yet!
With regard to grossness, I was disappointed - what I saw was survivable,
which I would have thaought Dorastor was not. But then the chaos horror of
snake pipe hollow was limited to one chamber as well, the rest was simply a
collection of a few monsters - nothing a band of Runelords (Storm Kahans
or similar) couuldn't exterminate on an average day. I've never played it,
though, and I was told that actually playing it can scare the hell out of
you.
>Geoff Gunner (on the Spirit Plane):
>I think physical combat is more suited to the God Plane.
What about the borders between God Plane and Spirit Plane? They exist, else
shamans wouldn't be able to visit gods via the spirit plane. They do so,
see the rules book, Shamans (or What the Shaman says).
>>A thought; What's the ground like ?
>The "ground" is a haze of static plant spirits. Where there are no plants,
>there is no ground (eg. in a desert. Navigation could be quite tricky without
>any visual cues).
I hold it that places and minerals have their spirits, too. they only have
very slow life cycles, and need vast amounts of substance to produce useful
amounts of POW. This makes enspelling "dead" matter fairly easy, unless one
tries to do so on loads of matter - one might have to overcome some
resistance, then. Minerals etc. also regenerate MP extremely slowly.
And a desert would have landmarks - beasts in their burrows, plants in
hibernation (only faintly connected to the mundane plane), and last not
least the life on the edge of the desert as faraway dawn. Only really dead
places like that in Prax, or the Copper Sands, are totally devoid of life.
>>re Colin Watson - 1 POW loss per month seems good to me.
>This was a monstrously arbitrary decision on my part. I started with 1 POW
>per year and decided it wasn't quick enough, so 1 per month it was!
>I reckon the deterioration should be different for different types
>of creatures: eg. Wraiths POW should deteriorate *very* rapidly (same for
>any would-be undead), but wraiths CON should dissolve more slowly than for a
>normal human spirit (1 per month again?).
>>And the results of `eating' a spirit ? A POW gain roll, in the normal
>>manner ?
>Yup, I'd say so. Regular spirit combat is the best way to survive on the
>spirit plane.
So you say that plant spirits which can't attack will fade away or be eaten,
unless they are lucky to be attacked by weak aggressive spirits? Don't let
Aldrya or Flamal hear that!
Again my question: what if the combat result is a stand-off, with both
participants having succeeded a few times in the combat. Do they both get a
POW-gain roll?
I think the RQ3 POW-gain roll is a bug, the seed for munchkinism.
>>I would rule only if the target spirit was completely destroyed.
>MP completely destroyed, yes; but not POW. Destruction of POW should be quite
>difficult.
First you let the spirits (at least the non-aggressive kind) fade away
within short time (btw, what do people mean with "month" with regard to
Glorantha? Half a season, i.e. 4 weeks? One cycle of the Red Moon, i.e. 7
days? or one of the Blue Moon, i.e. 1 to 6 days?), then you leave thenm
running around emptied of life force, to be conquered again as soon as they
have regained one MP. This makes the aggressors gross, allowing them to
build up their POW by the hour. (Munchkin spirits would look out for
Spirits ten MP weaker than themselves, fight them down, and wait for POW to
rise. Repeat until godhood.)
>I see POW as an attribute which "attracts" MP from the background pool in the
>spirit world. The bigger the POW, the faster it attracts MP, and the more it
>can hold.
But this background pool is fed by POW only. Still, I agree on the general
picture.
>Ghosts, wraiths, ghouls. I, too, would like to hear poeples views on how
>these creatures come into being, and why they do what they do.
Ghosts: trapped souls, doomed to an existence on the border between spirit
plane and mundane world. Can be created by variuos rituals (Humakt, Zorak
Zoran, Thanatar, sorcery, shamanism, by Create or Bind Ghost). Never a
state reached by own design without help from the living.
Ghoul spirits:
a) failed Vivamorti (or similar cultists) trying to regain physical existance
b) on my non-Glorantha alternate Glorantha/Earth gameworld there are
necromantic cults allowing their dead an existance as undead. Unlike the
spirit magic Create Zombie, these undead are powered by trapping the
spirit's POW for mundane effects. The trapping usually is a temporal effect
and wears off as the corpse rots away. If you want to look at it from
another view, Ancestor Worship which calls the ancestors into some corpses,
no matter what individual, as long as the race is right.
Wraiths are an enigma to me. I don't understand why they have CON, but
their lack of POW makes them at least from the rules aspect into undead.
Maybe CON is needed to maintain some link to the living.
>And any views as to how elementals fit in would be appreciated too.
RQ tells us that the elementals reside in the appropriate god planes, where
pools or similar of the primary matter (associated to the deity, I'd
suppose, i.e. Orlanth/Storm Bull/Valind Air, Yelm/Lodril/Gustbran/Calyz
Fire...)
To enter the spirit plane, they would have to cross the border of the god
plane into the spirit plane, and then wander about. This makes them
comparatively scarce except close to the fitting god plane sections.
I'd like to see more types of elementals, not just will-less matter
animated by magic. Look at the Dehori for darkness spirits, and try and
translate these into the other known elements. Hollri seem to be half way
between elementals and demons, although ice is no official element. There
could be light "elementals" of solar or stellar types, too, not just of
moon. E.g. for Pole Star, Star Captains, Dayzatar, Tolat... (or were these
the extinct Gold Wheel dancers?)
---------------------
From: watson@computing-science.aberdeen.ac.uk (Colin Watson)
Subject: Planes; streams; frogs etc...
Message-ID: <9310041733.AA21548@condor>
Date: 4 Oct 93 17:33:02 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1905
Lots of interesting stuff from the weekend to comment on:
[I'm recovering from a bout of 'Flu from Hell so my judgement is probably
impaired (more than the usual, that is).]
GOD PLANE/SPIRIT PLANE
(*Please* someone correct me if I'm wrong, but...)
I thought the major distinction between the GP and the SP was that the GP
existed outwith Time. The God Plane is where the Gods live; its where
you go on HeroQuests; its where lots of weirdo effects happen because of
the absence of (objective) Time.
I would have thought that there must be a major threshold between the
SP and the GP (or the Mundane Plane & GP for that matter) which is *difficult*
to cross - the place where Time ceases. I don't buy the idea that a Shaman
can enter the God Plane via the Spirit Plane any easier than a normal
corporeal person can enter the God Plane from the Mundane Plane. To me
there is a huge qualitative difference between the God Plane and the Spirit
Plane. (The Outer Spirit Plane is just an area of the SP where Big Spirits
hang out. It's not the God Plane. Nowhere near. *Maybe* Big Spirits can
become Gods if they accept the binding conditions of the Compromise and
transcend into the God Plane. Maybe.).
Also, I'm of the opinion that the God Plane has Substance which the SP
lacks. Real combat works on the God Plane because the participants have
substance - it's meaningless on the Spirit Plane because everything there
is ethereal (lacking SIZ=substance). Ok, spirits on the SP can have
Appearance: the SP doesn't have to be gray and featurless, but neither will
it have all the features of the Mundane Plane.
Or have I been reading too much of the HeroQuest rules?
Greg:
>why SHOULDN'T rocks and streams have spirits, as all good animist believe?
I have problems considering spirits of inanimate objects. For starters they
are not "alive" - if you break them into pieces what happens
to the spirit? Does it divide among the pieces? Does it stay with one
piece? Imagine if a mountain is broken into boulders, and the boulders
into pebbles. Does each pebble have a spirit?
Streams are even more complicated, because they are not distinct objects -
rather they are concepts: Is the stream defined as the water within it, or
by the path it takes?
Living things, on the other hand, are easy to discern as separate, discrete, contiguous entities. In fact, I'd say that the definition of a Living Thing is
something which has a Spirit.
I'm happy to have spirits *associated* with certain non-living things:
water Nymphs for example. But a Nymph is not the spirit *of* a stream
in the same way that a cat spirit is the spirit *of* a cat. The relationship
of Nymph to stream is merely a symbiotic association IMHO.
So, some natural features will have spirits associated with them, but this
is not the case in general. I wouldn't say that there's a spirit for every
drop of water or grain of sand.
Anyway, the important thing is the Appearance of the spirit - what will it
look like in the spirit world? For some reason nymphs don't appear as
streams or ponds, they appear as attractive young women. I can't think of
any good spiritualogical reason for this...
'Course, you could say that everything on the Mundane Plane has an underlying
Magical Structure. The magical structure of the Living is a Spirit. The
magical structure of the Non-living is something less than a spirit but still
magical in some way. (I'd draw a real-world analogy with Organic and Inorganic
chemistry; but I ain't no chemist.) Perhaps this magical structure is visible
on the Spirit Plane... who knows?
Hell, if you want rocks'n'streams on the Spirit Plane then go ahead.
For me its just a bit Mundane.
Now, I was hoping someone would come up with some good ideas about elementals
in the spirit world. Maybe these are your rocks and streams?
_________________
Robert (McArthur):
>CW> Ok, Frog Woman priests will perceive frogs as "worshipping" Frog Woman
>CW> because they act like her. Really they're just acting like frogs.
>Frog Woman is the mother of frogs. So, they don't act like frogs except in
>as much as they act exactly like she does. The frogs aren't supporting the
>deity as much as *being* the deity.
Fair point, its difficult to argue this one. But I'd say a Deity needs someone
*outwith* her Being to do the worship. Self-worship isn't enough. If the
frogs *are* Frog Woman then surely their worship is self-worship?
_____
Geoff:
>Now, I've always seen people`s spirits as existing on
>the spirit plane at the same time, which I think's the implicit assumption
>of RQ.
Curiously, when we discussed this very point within our RQ group, we came to
the conclusion that spirits attached to the mundane plane don't exist on
the spirit plane.
The point arose when a PC shaman wanted to attack a spirit which was bound
(into an object) by discorporating & using spirit combat. (Typical PC-ish
sorta thing :-).
The GM ruled that the spirit wasn't on the spirit plane (it was bound to
the mundane plane) so the shaman couldn't attack (unless he cast Visibility).
From this we also inferred that spirits of the living didn't exist on
the spirit plane. Makes sense, otherwise your spirit could get summoned
at any time...
>And another point - what determines size on the spirit plane ? Can POW be
>correlated with SIZ ?
I'd say there is no SIZ in the spirit plane, only APParent size. Things
look as big as they would be on the mundane plane; but they are insubstantial.
_____
Joerg: (Still not convinced about POW deterioration...)
Your suggestion about stopping POW-gains for "dead" spirits seems very
reasonable. It certainly prevents old spirits from getting huge. Adopting this
approach, I wouldn't even let dominant-possessors get a POW gain otherwise
shamanic ghosts could become virtually immortal (by possessing a new body
when they die).
I still have a slight problem concerning the ever-increasing number of spirits.
If spirits don't deteriorate, then the population of spirits must be
constantly increasing. Does Heaven ever get full up?
I still prefer the idea that spirits are dissolved and recycled. I postulate
that the total magical energy in the universe is constant, not increasing.
I liked your suggestions for Ghoulish motivation. Would you say that the
choice of becoming a Ghoul was voluntary? At what point should the decision be
made?
Something I wondered about:
A religion's doctrine may state that the spirits of devout followers go
to meet with their God in the afterlife; but this don't necessarily make it so.
Priests may have cast-iron proof that their god exists; but do they have
any proof of what happens in the afterlife? Maybe there's room for Faith here.
____________
This God stuff is altogether too complicated. Lets move on to simpler, more
clearly-defined rules for magic. Yes, I'm talkin' Sorcery:
Kirsten K. Niemann (Protective Circle):
Yes, the published description of Protective Circle is nonsense. I wonder
how this howler wasn't picked up in the last errata. I guess it ranks
alongside the statement that "ritual magic cannot be multispelled" (Create
Familiar anyone?:-).
Radius=intensity seems fair to me. I'd add the option that the radius can
be smaller than the intensity if desired. I agree that the circle can't be
bigger than the object that it's cast upon (gods help any GM who rules
otherwise). If you're going to make the inscription of the circle separate
from the casting of the spell, then I'd add a note about how long it takes
to scribe the circle (say DEX SR + 2 SR per m radius).
You listed a cloak as an example of the kind of object it might be cast on:
I assume this means a sorcerer can pre-cast a long duration Protective Circle
on his cloak and, when the moment arrives, he can roll his cloak out on the
ground and stand inside it. I'm not sure if this is desirable. Maybe it
should be restricted to inflexible, horizontal surfaces?
What about the belt-&-braces approach: the sorcerer has a personal Spell
Resistance up, and then steps inside his protective circle of Spell Resistance.
Does he get to resist incoming spells thrice (once with the circle; with his
personal spell; and with his MP vs MP) ? I'd say yes...
___
CW.
---------------------
From: C442196@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu (Newton Hughes)
Subject: more dorastor errors, also Issaries
Message-ID: <9310042127.AA14218@Sun.COM>
Date: 4 Oct 93 21:01:46 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1906
A couple more apparent errors in the Dorastor book:
1) There's a Humakti (Platewalker) listed as having the Berserk spell.
2) Skath & Skanth have HPs and damage mods all wrong, considering their
configuration; they ought to be figured separately.
The reviews posted here haven't done justice to the interior illustra-
tions, especially the woodcuts, which are terrific. I was disappointed
in the cover art; I would much rather see good b/w art there than this
crummy Dobyskian stuff.
Also, while we're on the merchant god discussion, the one thing that
seems extremely weird to me about Issaries is the restriction on theft.
I never heard of a Real World god who drew such a distinction; usually
their cultures consider both trading and thievery to be dishonorable
activities.
Newton