> Magic doesn't need to make sense
Hm, OK, I guess not. But this view sheds light on why the rules concerning common magic, concentrating magic, and misapplied worship bug me, and
In Glorantha, magic is ostensibly not just a cultural decoration like music systems or jewelry styles -- it's also a technology, something that makes people's lives better, and grants competitive advantages. And in our own world, we see what happens to societies with inferior technology. They eventually get wiped out almost completely if the technology gap with their neighbors is large (e.g. native societies in the continental U.S.), or conquered if the gap is smaller (pick any of the subject peoples of the so-called "gunpowder empires").
And yet, the HeroQuest rules plus the Gloranthan homeland descriptions imply there are societies with manifestly inferior magic living happily next door to superior neighbors. So somehow the Aeolings, for example, are never bothered that their 50-year-old orderlies of St. Worlath get stomped by 30-year-old Heortling devotees of Orlanth, which is quite likely if you carry the rules on misapplied worship to their logical conclusion.
Similarly, societies that have to give up all of their homegrown common magic to concentrate (such as the Heortlings) somehow are able to hold their own against neighboring peoples such as Teshnos and the Lunar Empire that not only have a more advanced material culture, but retain a much wider range of magic while getting all the benefits of concentration.
It doesn't make sense, but I guess it doesn't have to.
Rob
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