I come up with three answers for this:
1- how on earth did they become your cattle, rather than your
bloodline's or stead's (and hence part of your wealth rather than a
seperate item) anyways?
2- Why have a rating attached to them? If you have 5 cattle that are
very specifically yours, wouldn't you cement them as "five cattle"
just as you'd cement "chainmail hauberk" or "iron sword" ??? They
are what they are. Mind you, in this odd situation you'd probably
have to look at whether you were wealthy enough to pay to keep those
cattle....you could gain your own cattle but lose wealth just to
support them!
3- Following up on this thought, maybe it reflects how much you
are "paying" to have them pastured and tended (assuming that you pay
in the use of the cattle, so they aren't always available to you),
and how much you can remind people that these are, exceptionally,
*your* cattle and not the whole family's cattle ("What do you mean
you paid Harvar a cask of ale and two wheels of cheese to breed Bessy
with his best bull? I was going to sacrifice her to Finovan
tomorrow!")
> Without scouring the rules, it just seems obvious to me that Items
of
> Great Power (tm) should be available to find and cement at higher
> ratings. ...... Magic items are an intrinsic part of fantasy and
myth,
> and having to build them up from a rating of 12 is just against all
> precedent.
But are they an intrinsic part of Glorantha? It seems to me that
most items of great power in Glorantha are intimately associated with
myth. Also, a starting rating of 12 could reflect many things:
- The classic, you just aren't very powerful with it (cload of
darkness 12--you aren't very good at actually making it create a
shadow around you)
- your score in understanding what the thing is for is a 12, so you
can activate it at will but need to roll to figure out what it
actually apt to do (for example, a dwarven automaton of great
complexity, which you are never sure if it will attack everyone
nearby or start digging in the dirt or reciting operating procedures)
- the item has a great power, but you can't always get it to work
(for example a spear that summons hurricane force winds, but you have
to command it just as its creator would, and this is not always
obvious. This is a little like "summon huge umbroli - 12")
- You know what it is, and making it do its thing isn't hard, but
staying in control is ("soul-sucking sword of mighty cleaving 12" It
will always give you a huge edge and use of its "suck AP out of dying
foe 5W" skill....but you have a skill of 12 at not trying to kill
everying in sight once you've drawn it).
- It is straigtforward, simple, powerful, and easy to use. But not
everybody respects your right to actually own the item in question.
The rating of 12 reflects how much others think you have stolen
property, are obviously somebody's lacky, etc. (So you have the
Lance of Az-Belazar, and can spear through almost anything at
will....but most people think it belongs to the Shazaya clan, and you
can expect them to try and take it from you even though the governor
said it was yours (perhaps even drawing you into their heroquest to
recover it as the enemy?), or else people will assume you must be a
champion of the Shazaya even though you deny it, etc.). As you
increase your rating the item becomes recognized as yours.
I can think of few situation where a narrator would simply say "Here, Byrgi Bent-Bow, have Excaliber, yes you can cement it for one hero point, now you own it and can use it and everyone believes you are the legitimate holder." Maybe for a session (and no chance to cement it at the end), but to just give it like that would be awfully Monty Haul, wouldn't it?
Way back I said most items had mythic associations. The natural corrolary is that once you have the item, if you want to really master it, you go questing through its myth and symbolically gain mastery over it, vastly increasing your rating in it. Since you already have the item in question you should probably get some good bonusses.....now if can just be sure you have the myth straight!
All just my thoughts and opinions, understanding that other have legitimate and different views of how things should work.
--Bryan
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