On Sunday, May 11, 2003, at 12:38 PM, Alex Ferguson wrote:
> and Dave Camoirano:
> > Common magic is a specific type of magic just like theistic or
> animist.
> > Each type of magic has a source. Theistic magic comes from the god
> > plane, animist from the spirit plane and common magic from the mundane
> > plane.
>
> If I'm putting these nuggets together correctly, that would seem to be
> only strictly true of _innate_ magic.
Well, not exactly. Common magic charms come from spirits in the mundane plane. For example, if there's a grove of trees nearby inhabited by those little nature spirits like the ones in 'Princess Mononoke', one of them can be bound into a charm and it would be a common magic charm since the spirit originated in the mundane plane. If there's a divine rock on your tula and it can grant a feat, it's a common magic feat since the magic originated on the mundane plane. Greg gave an excellent example that I believe has already been summed-up on one of the lists where he talked about how most people in Glorantha don't care about the source of a particular magic. If sacrificing to a divine berry bush means you're going to get more food, then that's what most people will do. If performing ecstatic worship rites to an animist stream means you'll catch more fish, so be it. The world is made of everything but to paraphrase Orwell, some things are more everything than others. Most trees are just trees with an equal mix of divine, spirit, and essense. A tree or grove that leans more towards spirit, however, will most likely be inhabited by a dryad.
> > Just as concentrating in theistic magic means giving up all
> > non-theistic magic, concentrating in common magic means giving up all
> > non-common magic.
>
> It's not clear to me what 'non-common' magic is, though.
Magic that *doesn't* have a source in the mundane plane.
> Is the
> implication that CM can be _some_ collection of Feats (say), but not
> _any_
> arbitrary Feat? e.g., DX 'donates' a Feat to the 7M, which thereby
> becomes
> a CM thingy, as well as an authenticly god-world magic? Or are the
> Feats
> available to dedicated DX worshippers, and those to 7Mists,
> non-overlapping?
>
> > > Are there any previously-known exemplars of such?
> >
> > Sort of. The Seven Mothers is now a common magic religion.
>
> Surely this only makes sense in the "little of everything"
> interpretation,
> rather than the "Inner World only"? And is this a case where it would
> be reasonable to 'concentrate' on a grab-bag of feats and spells from
> different sources?
The Seven Mothers have their origins in the mundane plane (I don't know if this is the official view but was my rationale when I first read that it was a CM religion.) I'm guessing that as a collective, they provide the common magic based on what they did before ascending.
> > I believe the main idea was to bring back the RQ experience of varied
> > magic. In RQ, you had your god's magic which was very specific and
> only
> > followers of your god received that magic. However, everyone had
> access
> > to healing, bladesharp, protection, etc. This was "common magic".
>
> And also at least implied (and in RQ3 outright stated) to be animist
> in nature.
Ok, you got me there. There was less of a division between spirit and divine way back in RQ days. Heck, the gods *provided* spirit magic!
> Not that that wasn't problematic in itself... In a 'gameist'
> sense I understand what you're saying here, but I was more trying to
> relate the rules back to the understanding of the world.
Hey, I certainly understand. As originally written, the CM rules were fine from a gameist point of view but made no sense world-wise (that was my biggest issue with the whole thing). It makes much more sense now.
Camo
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