Magic Skill Fumbles

From: stephen.royle_at_...
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 14:17:41 +0000

I was wondering how everybody interprets these. The two examples from my campaign I have are: a) A PC prayed to his God, Varnaga an Oslir River Crocodile God, to help him swim up a river, a big river for nearly a day to get help for the party.
He used his initiate of skill to gain divine aid and fumbled. I decreed that because he had been calling upon his God directly, accepting magics from a Yelmalion and with Yelm being an enemy of Varnaga, his God was displeased with him for this acceptance of enemy magic and he lost all access to his gods magic till he redeems himself. Too harsh?
(He is in the process of clearing a rivers headwaters from broo induced disease and infection)

b) The aformentioned Yelmalion fumbled whilst casting a lightwall from his Light affinity.
As he was underground at the time, I gave him a -10 on further Light affinity use until he bathed himself in Yelms glorious light and gave appropriate sacrifices/prayers.

Are both these too harsh?
What do other people do when Heroes fumble magic and magic related skills, or what would other people do in these situations?

By the way, Thunder Rebels is excellent, I've been waiting half my life for this information! :-)
Congratulations to all who were involved and Simon your woodcuttings are 'just so...', or from my neck of the woods, tops!

Steve