re: background; starting a shaman; Jumping over trees

From: David Dunham <david_at_...>
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 16:31:32 -0800

Gareth asked about the best place to start learning about Glorantha -- I don't think anyone's mentioned the HeroWars mailing list (also on eGroups), which is intended to be more beginner-friendly than the Glorantha Digest, and less rules-oriented than this one.

Wulf answered me

>Ah, but by just saying "She's got lots of spirits", she gets 10 of the
>little devils, selected later. Only specials need be mentioned (like
>spirits from outside the Tradition).

But why does "lots" = 10 and not some other number? (Well, because it's the house rule, I guess. But I was still hoping for more guidance from the rules -- this is the first time we've been playing with animists so I'm finding holes I didn't realize were there.)

I don't really know that I like this "lots" thing, would a Grazer war chief get an extra 20-50 followers if he writes "He commands a large war band?"

> >>There are no guidelines in the book. The suggestion I like best from the
> >>list is basically the more often you can use a sprit the less powerful
> >>it is so:-
> >>17 1 per day
> >>15 3 per day
> >>13 Integrated
> >
> >This is on the assumption that the shaman's fetishes would be more
> >powerful than a tribesman's? The problem here is that the default
> >value for writing down any spirit is 13.
>
>Again, you're talking listed specific spirits, this rule applies to
>the 5 'basic' spirits an Animist gets. When a Shaman picks his
>spirits, he need not pick Might 17 one-use spirits, he can use the
>above rule.

Well I wouldn't pick Might 17 one-use if I could get Might 17 once per day either... Again, I assume the idea behind this house rule is simply that shamans are mightier than tribesmen?

Mikko

>What limit's an animist character in the
>number of spirits he can integrate? If the answer is nothing then I have
>to figure it out myself. Even 'ol RQ limited the number of Spell Spirits
>you could integrate, though it was done a bit strangely, and not
>dependant on the spirit's POW (as I did it)

Why should there be any limit? They all start at 12 (other than the few you can get in character creation), which is hardly overbalancing.

As for the Roderick/Mikael bit, I think the problem was that Roderick misspelled "extraordinarily tall" in the first place. A redwood ought to be harder to jump to the top of than a maple. A magical maple would also be harder than a normal maple.

David Dunham dunham_at_...
Glorantha/HW/RQ page: http://www.pensee.com/dunham/glorantha.html Imagination is more important than knowledge. -- Albert Einstein