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Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Thu, 13 Oct 1994, part 3
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From: bmason@morgan.ucs.mun.ca (Bruce Mason)
Subject: Oh no sorcery: final part.
Message-ID:
Date: 11 Oct 94 11:32:59 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6569
This is the third and final part of the wizardtastically wonderful
sorcery system of Bruce L. Mason. Basically I'll just round off some
bits and pieces and then we can all get back to discussing just how many
troll spirits can dance on the head of a mace :-)
vessel vows
Increasing the size of your vessel is obviously a hot priority for most
PC wizards. Sacrificing POW may seem easy but there are a lot of calls
on your POW which is, I suspect, one reason why vows are so popular.
Generally you should negotiate on an individual basis but here are some
I've agreed in the past.
Celibacy 1 season per year. 1pt
Total Celibacy. 3pts
Eat no meat. 1pt
Drink no alcohol 1pt
Take no intoxicating substances of any kind. 2pt (Consult Rokar's book
of banned substances...)
Missionary fervour 1-3pts (Must try to convert Brithini is
always good for a laugh).
Never sleep inside. 1pt.
Never bathe. 1pt
Never shave. 1pt
Silence 1 day/week. 1pt
Silence 1 season/year 2pts
Total silence 3pts. (Npc vows these...)
Never enter a built structure 2pts
Self flaggellation 1-3pts (depends how many hps the Player can
stomach losing)
Obsessive cleanliness 1pt
Never speak to krjalki 1pt
Never speak to or aid krjalki in any way 2pts
Wanderlust 1pt
Never learn or use [tap, venom, various demon spells etc] 1 pt each.
I expect you see the basic concept. Most vows deal with the denial of
the body and natural urges in order to rarify the spirit. Consequently
vows of the nature of ``have fun and meet people'' don't go down too well
with Deus Invisible. Breaking vows will at the very least result in the
temporary removal of that part of the vessel until an appropriate penance
is performed. Deliberate vow breaking will usually result in the loss of
1/2 to all of the vessel until penance is undertaken. This all makes for
good fun role-playing.
Ritual of Independence
----------------------
This is modified from RAG and is a sorcery
enchantment that doesn't require vessel to use. It is essentially a
method of giving spells a form of permanence.[1]
First the wizard must consecrate an object and spend 1 POW for each spell
it will hold using a simple enchant ritual.
Secondly she casts the spell to be held into the object using an the
ritual of independence.
Finally she creates a link between the object and a MP source, typically
a spirit or MP matrix.
For the spell to persist it must consume a number of MPs equal to its
casting cost per day from the linked source, if it can not do this it
fails and the POW is lost. Typically most sorcerors stick a POW
spirit in a binding enchantment. Other possibilities are an MP
matrix that the user fills routinely or in some of the bigger spells
large MP matrices are filled by several acolyhists as part of their
daily duties. (Great life being an acolythist you get to sweep
floors, shovel shit and fill up MP matrices. Got to be MOB scenario
in there somewhere). This spell is very important for Stygian sorcerors
as I'll explain shortly.
MP regeneration
---------------
I play that everyone gets 1/2 the MPS back at sunrise and
1/2 at sunset.[2] Transitions are scary times, with mystic vision the
wounded body of Yelm can be seen dragging magical energies across the
face of Glorantha and stealing them away to the underworld at dusk. This
can sometimes disrupt spells, especially those nearing their duration's
end which sometimes fail prematurely. Consequently dusk and dawn are the
harbingers of many magical attacks across Glorantha.
Atheist Sorcery
---------------
Everything so far has been written in a Malkioni paradigm.
For atheist sorcerors the vessel liberation is more personal, generally
focusing much more on the enslavement of the hidden self, and will
vary depending upon the initiate's master. The most notable point is
that vows mean less without an appropriate paradigm so many morally
bankrupt sorcerors have been known to investigate methods of extracting
spirit from other creatures to enlarge their vessel. Of course just
because you're an atheist doesn't mean you're morally bankrupt. For
example the Brithini just live a longtime and sacrifice 1POW every year
or so. Give them a few centuries and you realise why you *don't* mess
with Brithini sorcerors.
Stygian Sorcery
---------------
This is going to be controversial but basically stygian
sorcerors do not and can not have a vessel for they have sacrificed it to
some God or other. I have never really been able to playtest this but my
feeling is that they can sacrifice for specific vessel abilities as if
they were rune magic. Eg a stygian could sacrifice for 3 points of range
which she could use in manipulating a sorcery spell. Obviously this is
far less powerful, but that may not be a bad thing. Stygian's get access
to rune magic and sorcery already and many of them use personal magic
too.[3]
END NOTES
---------
Thanks for your patience. I hope there's food for thought. As
I said there are four basic criteria behind why things work the way they
do. I wanted a system that was playable and didn't need too much pen and
paper work. By taking all the manipulation skills out, all the non-linear
tables and replacing them with one, and diminishing the reliance on
matrices to get around the FREE INT limit the system is a lot easier to
run. Secondly it doesn't *look* that much different to RQ3 on paper.
You can pretty much take some like Arlaten the Mage make a decision on
the size of his vessel and what vows he may have taken and pretty much
leave his skills, spells and items alone. Thirdly I believe this is much
more specific to Glorantha and theistic wizardry in particular. The
three fold dichotomy is distinctly God-Learnerish and so must be taken
cautiously but there you go. Finally it does emphasize the spiritual
nature of wizardry whilst retaining its basis as intellectual pursuit.
As I say it has all been pretty thoroughly play-tested in a Jonatelan
monastry out near High Llama pass and I'm interested in hearing what
others have to say. So it's an ego trip.
---Bruce.
Footnotes
---------
[1] This is basically a way of letting sorcerors give nobles gifts and
so on. It costs quite a bit of POW compared to RQ3's system where you're
sorceror enchanted a damage boost 3 onto your sword once a year for you.
BTW I use the RAG matrix idea. I pt gives knowledge of a spell equal to
MBonus. Each point thereafter gives +10% to spell cast. This does make
matrices very useful.
[2] Two reasons for this. The 1/24th of your POW back in MPs per hour
became unplayable cause sorcerors go through a lot of MPs. Secondly it
seems more atmospheric. If ever I start a scenario with ``It's almost
dusk as...'' then the PCs get panic attacks. Plus I like the concept of
Genertela as a dead land having the magical energies wash across Genert's
bones. I think in Pamaltela you get MPs back a lot more easily, probably
everytime Pamalt beathes out.
[3] This is speculative as the campaign never got the far. A couple of
stygian NPCs relied heavily on the Independence ritual. At one point a
Troll priestess had a pseudo ``runepower'' pool of 25 points that she
used like a vessel but it didn't seem quite right so that got ditched in
favour of sacrificing for particular vessel capabilities that may be
limited by cult.
---------------------
From: sandyp@idcube.idsoftware.com (Sandy Petersen)
Subject: Slarges et al.
Message-ID: <9410111717.AA16816@idcube.idsoftware.com>
Date: 11 Oct 94 05:17:09 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6570
Peter M.
>The Slarges live in Wongarissi. This is one area of glorantha, I
>would like to know more about (from a safe distance of course!)
>I know the slarges culture is obviously based around the whims and
>curiousity of the big'uns and their magic ranges from Shamanism to
>Sorcery(!) and yet they have no observable cities or urban
>settlements. I'm thinking that the philosopy of the big ones
>basicly revolves around experimenting with the world as such and the
>little ones are their children to obey. I don't think they have any
>gods to worship (although their shamans will know of some big
>spirits). Does anybody have more info about them other than whats
>been said of in elder secrets?
As originator of the damn slarges, it is clearly my duty to do some
description here.
SEX (oh baby): At the risk of tedium, I'll repeat some data
from my Gloranthan Bestiary. Slarges have a rather peculiar
life-cycle. Lesser Slarges (so-called by humans; no one knows what
they term themselves) are smallish reptile beings that give live
birth. They seem to have two sexes. The children of the Lesser
Slarges grow up into Giant Slarges.
Giant Slarges are hermaphroditic and never mate. Instead,
they parthenogenetically spawn large clusters of eggs, which hatch
into Lesser Slarges. Thus the cycle repeats again. Of course, the
cycles are all mixed up by now, so that the slarge population is a
mixture of Giant and Lesser individuals. Most slarges encountered are
Lesser, which may have a higher survival rate than Giants. Or perhaps
it's just that Lesser Slarges are more aggressive and go in packs, so
they're simply more likely to encounter humans than their solitary
sires.
LESSER SLARGES are highly social and invariably found in
groups. They are quite hostile to humans -- at least as hostile as
are most trolls. Lesser slarges have been seen to fight one another,
but always one-on-one, with the others watching. Perhaps these are
dominance fights, or something else. The loser is rarely killed, so
it would appear that slarges are more cooperative within their own
species than are humans. Lesser slarges do not make towns or cities,
but are nomadic, like broos or certain humans. They do not ostracize
the giant slarges, but not uncommonly have one or more of these
individuals with them.
Lesser slarges are not workers. They do not make weapons or
armor, or produce anything but the most trifling artifacts. They
appear to have little or no artistic impetus, but are entirely given
over to the arts of fighting, hunting, and working. Their skills are
generally wholly practical in nature, as are the spells they learn.
Lesser slarges are perfectly able to become shamans, but they
are not particularly great at this -- perhaps because of their lack
of creativity. Lesser slarges DO appear to be the "leaders" of the
Slarge species, at least insofar as they provide the drive and
ambition to spread across the plains, thrusting aside the humans as
they advance.
GIANT SLARGES are solitary, and are known to build structures
in which to house themselves. These creatures are not as hostile as
lesser slarges (which is not saying much -- they can still be very
dangerous), and a few have been known to interact with humans on at
least a neutral basis; trading food for magic, stuff like that.
Giant slarges are highly creative and curious beings, each
spending its life in some particular labor (perhaps this is their
sublimated sex drive kicking in?). There is some overlap between
Giant Slarge "hobbies", and even some evidence of collusion -- for
instance, at least one Giant Slarge metalworker is found in each
large section of territory, but rarely more than one. Some human
theorists reason that the giant slarge hobbies are chosen by the
lesser slarges, either by the giant's parents while raising the
whelp, or after adulthood, by a committee of lesser slarges. Another,
less-popular theory is that there is a single particular giant slarge
who travels around the Wonggarisi, telling the other slarges what to
do, as _his_ hobby.
The Giant Slarge output is mostly consumed and used by the
lesser slarges. Giants that specialize in training dinosaurs, say,
are taken by the lesser slarges to help herd dinosaurs in attacks on
human or goblin areas. Giants that specialize in making magic items
are heavily "patronized" by the lesser slarges. Many giants seem
slipshod about caring for themselves, and often a small team of
lesser slarges will take upon themselves the task of feeding a
particular giant.
GOVERNMENT: the lesser slarges are manifestly in charge. The
giants are artistes and philosophers, who sit back and are enormously
self-centered, concerned with their species only intellectually. The
lesser slarges have the drive and ambition to rule the slarge race,
and do so. They do not appear to have a central government, and when
a lesser slarge sees something that needs to be done, he gets his
gang to do it. It is believed that the instances of "dominance
battles" amongst lesser slarges are NOT to determine leadership, but
are violent differences of opinion as to what course of action the
group is going to take next.
Lesser slarges obey giant slarges inasmuch as they want the
giant slarges to keep producing. Hence, if a giant slarge wants ore
to make more swords, the lesser slarges may act as a group to mine
the ore, so that the giant slarge can devote himself entirely to
hammering out the swords.
MAGIC: slarges have unusual magic. Perhaps they are trying to
displace human spirits as well as the human species? They have a
number of otherwise-unknown spirit spells, such as "Padding" and
"Anti-Healing".
SOME SLARGE SPELLS:
Padding (variable): each point adds 1d6 false hit points to
each hit location of the slarge. Roll once, and add the same amount
to each location. For instance, if a 4-point Padding were cast, and a
14 were rolled on the dice, the Slarge would add 14 points to each
hit location. These extra hit points are "outside" any armor or other
defensive spells, and are eaten up first, before any damage is done
to the slarge.
Anti-Healing (variable): an attack spell. If successful, the
target loses 1 hit pt per pt in the Anti-Heal in a single location
chosen by the attacker.
The dreaded CYCLE: This is not a spirit spell, but Something
Else. It is hard for the Slarges to do, and presumably it costs them
permanent POW or something, for it is rare, and usually aimed only at
a human leader. This spell is hated and feared, as its effects are
permanent and little-understood. In effect, it changes all the
targets' characteristics as follows: his STR becomes his CON, his CON
becomes his SIZ, his SIZ becomes his INT, and so forth, clear-round,
until his APP becomes his new STR. Of course seven applications of
Cycle will bring you round full-circle back to where you started.
Some researchers believe that certain Giant Slarges have used
the Cycle spell to give themselves enormous INT or POW (by using
their great SIZ).
Slarges are sometimes believed to know sorcery or divine
magic, and maybe they do, but it is also possible that they are
learning mysterious extra magic of their own that is not spirit
magic, but Something Else. Mysticism? Draconic magic? Who knows?
SLARGE METAL: the slarges produce their own particular type
of metal which, for lack of a better name, is called "Slarge Metal".
It is the only metal known to most inhabitants of Tarien, anyway.
Slarge Metal is nasty stuff. It is irritating to the touch (for a
human, not a slarge), and prolonged contact with it causes a skin
rash and eventually ulceration. Presumably it was created
specifically as an anti-human weapon, for it does not have this same
effect on reptiles, especially slarges.
A location injured by slarge metal is harder to heal -- one
additional point must be healed in order to cure the wound, even for
first aid. If a single attempt at healing does not completely repair
the location, second (and third) attempts must also heal an extra
point. For instance, if your thigh took 6 points of damage from a
slarge metal speartip, and you applied First Aid, rolling a 3 for pts
healed, only 2 pts would actually be cured, leaving you with 4. If
you then cast a Heal 4, only 3 points would go away, leaving you with
1 still. And that 1 would require at least a Heal 2 to cure.
Joerg:
>the Doraddi "don't let anything unusual happen" style of life
>doesn't feed the roleplayers' urge for action.
In my never-ending quest to promote the Doraddi way of
living, I must say that the Doraddi have all sorts of action going on
in their territory. Anyone who has purchased my campaign log or who
played in my campaign (any of you guys on the net? Jeff Okamoto?)
when we were in Pamaltela can testify to that. But the conflicts are
unlikely to be the good ol' human vs. human duels and fights so
common in Orlanthi country. Instead, you find yourself interacting
with human opponents in the Chief's Council, or trying to negotiate
wedding rights to a woman you desire, or trying to get out of paying
something you owe. There's also plenty of combat in the Doraddi
lands, but it does tend to be against non-human foes. The typical
Doraddi adventure is not an ambush by broos, but a hunt. The
monstrous things that the Doraddi hunt (titanotheres, dinosaurs,
etc.) are fierce enough that the conflict is worth playing out.
IMPORTANT NOTE: apparently I can't tell Sozganjio and Hornilio apart,
and in my last essay constantly mixed them up. Mea maxima culpa.
---------------------