>That's all very well but what distinguishes a feat from
>a spell? I know what charms and talents are but with
>feats and spells, one enters a thick haze where in
>effect they seem to be the same thing.
For my in-Glorantha explanation, I went with the following:
A talent is something you awaken within yourself.
A charm is a little object symbolically related to the effect. If you know about animism, you'd say it contains the power of a spirit.
(Those everyone seems to agree on.)
A spell is a formula or recipe of some kind -- the sort of folk magic that commands you to perform a sequence of seemingly nonsensical actions, or mix certain ingredients into a soup or tea.
A feat is an example, conveyed in a story of some kind. As with the formal, theistic kind of feat, the user of a common feat so identifies with the legendary protagonist and his/her mythic action that he earns a magical boost to similar actions.
Of course, that's just my personal take on the matter, but it does distinguish between the different types in-setting.
Stacy Forsythe
deadstop_at_...
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